Author Dispels Myths of Marijuana Legalization at Fox Lane

The legalization of marijuana can engender an image of the drug’s laid back disciples who will tend their little plots around daily smokes circles, while lamenting the loss of the counterculture. Then waiting to exhale just after 4:20 p.m. every day, plenty of time shall be left to bag their haul to a local retailer who’s eager to dispense peace and contentment, while both remember to stick it to the man for old time’s sake. That is just one of the marijuana myths author Kevin Sabet was trying to dispel for students, staff and law enforcement this Thursday at Fox Lane High School as the nation seems poised to enact a retail sale legalization of marijuana.

“We are in the midst of creating the tobacco industry 2.0,” said the author of Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths about Marijuana.

This has Wall Street and large corporations providing the financial resources to achieve their goals. “Right now in Ohio the ten richest people in the state are spending about $20 million to write a ballot initiative to control, supply and distribute marijuana,” said the former Senior Advisor for the Obama Administration at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Thus a Wall Street profit motive will mass produce the model that any seller of addictive substances use. “Ten percent of all alcohol users drink daily and contribute to 75% of the sales,” said Sabet. “Without them, you wouldn’t have an alcohol industry.”

The power of Madison Avenue marketing certainly won’t be left behind either. “One company has already paid the widow of Bob Marley $50 million to use his name and image on their product,” said Sabet.

But the best way to create the ideal addictive client is by drawing from the young, which has its basis clearly stamped in science. Whether it’s the high of seeing a good friend or the artificial enhancements many people succumb to, the pleasure center of the brain is activated and our memory will implore us to continually seek that out. With the brain undeveloped up to the age of 30, he says, “The natural process of growth suffers when drugs are introduced, and one sixth of the people who become addicted to marijuana first began smoking at any early age.”

The writing is already on the wall. “When you walk into a Colorado marijuana shop, it looks like a candy store,” he said. “They have gummy bear pot, colorfully flavored drinks and advertising that is specifically targeted at young people.”

Even so, corporate greed receives an ally in attitudes that are established in the older generation. Boomers and beyond reason that many more people don’t succumb to addiction and fond recollections of smoking pot in their youth creates a deadly disconnect. “We’ve become better farmers, and THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) levels are so much higher now,” said Sabet who is the Director of the Drug Policy Institute and Assistant Professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, Division of Addiction Medicine.

He likens today’s marijuana to the souped-up versions of tobacco. “The tobacco industry took their product, restructured the DNA and added numerous addictive properties,” he said.

In turn, marijuana actually comes in a form where the product is 98% THC. Sabet displayed ads and billboards in legal states where dealers are giving the pure product away for free. Thus, the chances of becoming addicted are significantly increased, according to Sabet.

Another aspect borrowed from tobacco is the promise of medicinal properties, and the opportunity for mass approval. Acknowledging the real possibility of medical use for marijuana, Sabet still provided slides from the late 1800s where tobacco was hailed as an elixir for various ailments. “That led to wider acceptance,” he said, “and then greater use – even though the claims were baseless.”

So the Wall Street movement is trying to discard the image of the 30-year-old stoner living in his mom’s basement. “He’s not the guy the politicians want to stand up for,” said Sabet.

They’ve replaced him with the 85-year-old terminal cancer patient who is in dire need of pain medication. But while medical usage is not a ruse, it’s the application that he finds troubling.  This has people going to the retailer rather than a doctor. “We need to harness the medical properties by putting it behind the counter,” he says.

But this entire discussion does not proceed under the assumption that the war on drugs and mass incarceration are a good thing. He just questions why one tragedy is being replaced with a freewheeling, free market policy that will pave the way for another tragedy. “We need a smart approach to marijuana legalization,” he concluded.  

Katonah Resident Dispels Prison Myths through her Art Rehab Program

​From the perch of a marketing career in international business – like the one Katherine Vockins once occupied - or the freedom of descending the incline on Katonah Avenue, the daily difficulties of prison inmates really have no need to rise to a level that peaks our concerns. In accordance of the typical stereotypes most of us have of prison inmates, that perception abruptly changed for Vockins.

“I went into a prison,” she says. The myths dispelled, Vockins left her old life behind.

The Katonah resident founded and has been operating an arts program in five medium and maximum security prisons in New York State since 1998. “We started with theater – branched out to creative writing, poetry, modern dance and vocal training,” she says of Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA).

But she definitely can’t take credit for making this ascent. Her husband, also a successful business person at an earlier time, was working on his theology degree at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining. The experience began him onto a road as an activist for prison reform and educator for inmates on the inside and out.  Nonetheless, says Vockins, “I wanted to go in and find out what was so interesting.” 

Then as she began volunteering at Sing Sing alongside her husband Hans Hallundbaek, Vockins rather spontaneously inquired whether a theater program might work, and soon enough, she was writing a proposal to the Department of Corrections in Albany. Vockins got approval and the first group of theater students at Sing Sing had a play produced within a year.  “They usually write about the hood – violence, drugs, HIV/AIDS, etc.” she says.

The drama or comedy aside, she says, “Participation is about hope and transformation.” 

In accordance, the program provides a vehicle for inmates to move forward and accept responsibility. “Inmates have to choose to change their life and stop blaming the system,” said Vockins.

And that attitude has a definite effect inside. “A study done by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice proves that people who are in our programs have less disciplinary problems and better coping skills,” says Vockins.

A second study by SUNY Purchase shows that RTA students are more likely to finish their GED and enter college while still in prison. Providing a leg up upon finally getting a foot out the door, RTA’s recidivism rates for alumni far outclass peers. “Our approximate average is 10% and the national rate is above 50%,” says Vockins.

The inmates prefer not to see the results so mathematically. “They say the workshops give the opportunity to see themselves in a different light and build self-awareness,” she conveys.

Even so, there must be times when the walls don’t seem so safe for an outsider. “The first time I went into a women’s prison, a correctional officer put me in a room with twenty women I had never met, walked out and closed the door behind her. That was the only time I was ever scared,” she says.

Otherwise, the program provides a security all its own. “The trust and relationship that is built is mutually exclusive, and people in our program will always cover your back,” she says.

Hopefully, more of us can return the favor on the outside. It’s simply a matter of allowing the myths to fall in favor of reality and possibility.

Another Walk by Valley Edge in Katonah

Documentary and Film in the Works on the Life of Bruno Sammartino

Photo by swiftwj

Facing George “the animal” Steele, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobo Brazil or being the last one standing in the 22 Man Battle Royale in Los Angeles are pre WWE wrestling instances that all amount to just another day in the life of Bruno Sammartino. On the other hand, fleeing to the Italian mountainsfrom the Nazi’s during WWII made everything that followed seem like child’s play. But it still may be fair to ask, as the bombs were falling and his village being leveled, how much sense could a boy of nine actually make of this.

Read More : https://vocal.media/unbalanced/bruno-sammartino-a-hero-long-before-wwe-wrestling?via=rich

A Walk through Tarrytown

Please Like My 

Movie Review Page