WA Attorney General asks Liquor Control Board to ban flavored marijuana products

Last December, the Prevention WINS coalition sent a letter to the WA Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) reiterating our advice included in a June 2013 letter to ban marijuana products that are fruit and candy flavored. Our December 2014 letter said:


To treat marijuana as a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue, public health research on other products that are harmful to minors should be heeded.  Public health experts have found that fruit-flavored alcohol and tobacco products are popular among underage users.  

• Fruit-flavored alcohol products are marketed to and popular among youth. 

• Fruit and candy flavored cigarettes are banned by the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention Tobacco Control Act.

• Public health officials recently recommended that the Food and Drug Administration prohibit flavors in all tobacco products, not just cigarettes.   They cite “scientific evidence on flavored tobacco and its relationship with initiation and maintenance of tobacco use among youth and young adults.”  

To avoid similar public health problems associated with sweet-flavored marijuana products, Washington has the unique opportunity to protect child and adolescent health by strictly regulating marijuana before the industry is fully formed.  It will be much more difficult to do so in the future, as is evident by current public health efforts to more tightly regulate tobacco and alcohol products that have been legal for a long time.  

On May 6, the WA Attorney General's Office sent a letter to the WSLCB reiterating their similar comments. They referred to comments they, too, made in December that included:

Congress banned most flavored cigarettes -- an obviously non-edible product -- precisely because research showed that these products were especially appealing to children. The issue paper also refers to emerging research regarding youth-appealing flavored electronic cigarettes -- another non-edible category of product. 

As we understand it, WAC 314-55-077 empowers the WSLCB to prohibit only marijuana-infused products that are especially appealing to children. Because flavored usable marijuana and flavored marijuana concentrates are potentially especially appealing to children, these categories of products likewise should be subject to the WSLCB's authority under WAC 314-55-077. 

New campaign urges parents to talk to kids about marijuana

Recently, University of Washington researchers found that only 57 percent of Washington parents in a survey knew the legal age for recreational pot use.  

A new campaign to educate parents about the law and the importance of talking to children about marijuana recently was launched by Prevention WINS, the PEACE Coalition, and other stakeholders in Seattle. Three physicians from Seattle Children’s Hospital are featured in the campaign. With an increase in the number of Poison Center calls for teenagers who have consumed too much marijuana, physicians are particularly concerned.  

Parents are the number one influence on children, even in their teen years, so it’s important to know the law when talking to children about it. Research also shows that it is important for adults to help children develop the social and emotional skills needed to avoid drug use. For more than 20 years prevention programs have rejected scare tactics and have been providing parents with advice about promoting healthy decision-making among teenagers. With mixed messages children are receiving about risks associated with teenagers using marijuana, these parenting skills are more important than ever.  

For the record, it is legal only for people 21 years old and above to use marijuana in Washington.  
What else do parents and teenagers need to know about the law?

• Legal products include foods and beverages with marijuana in them.Some of these products may be attractive to youth and mistaken for common food and beverages. Examples include candy, soft drinks, and baked-goods.

• It is illegal for people under 21 to drive under the influence of any amount of marijuana.  

• The new law allows marijuana advertising. Be aware of marijuana advertising that your child is exposed to online, in magazines and newspapers, and in the community. Talk about the ads and the messages they send, especially if ads use images of young adults. Use these talks to stress your family rules about not using drugs, including marijuana.

• It is illegal for adults to provide marijuana to people under the age of 21, including parents giving their own children marijuana (unless they have a medical marijuana authorization.)  

• It is illegal to grow marijuana at home unless a medical marijuana authorization is obtained.  

• It is illegal to consume (smoke, eat, drink) marijuana products in public.

Black market marijuana continues to be avaiable to teenagers

Black market marijuana costs one-third as much as marijuana sold in legal (I-502) stores, according to an article appearing in today's Seattle Times.  "State Liquor Control Board (LCB) Director Rick Garza acknowledged a black market for marijuana likely will remain even after a system overhaul.  Garza assumes about 25 percent of the state's current black market is considered to be people under 21 who aren't allowed to buy recreational marijuana legally."

Black market marijuana is largely shared or sold to high school students by their friends.  Results from the 2012 Seattle Public School Youth Risk Behavior Survey show that almost 70% of high school students who use marijuana get it from friends.  

Black market marijuana in Washington is largely grown in Washington. So much is grown locally, Washington weed is sold throughout the United States. 

To eliminate the black market, Washington and local jurisdictions can invest in substance use prevention to reduce demand and enforce laws to reduce supply.  Changing the medical marijuana system will help reduce a significant portion of the supply to underage users, but not as much as investing in methods for preventing youth marijuana access and use for which coalitions like Prevention WINS have been advocating for long before state voters approved I-502.

Seattle Schools: Most drug disciplinary actions involve marijuana

Last night, KOMO broadcast a story about marijuana-related disciplinary incidents among Seattle students so far this school year.



While school administrators mostly confiscate smoked marijuana from students, they are increasingly confiscating marijuana-infused foods and beverages as they learn to differentiate them from regular foods.

NE Seattle adults encouraged to Mind Your Meds

The Prevention WINS coalition is launching a Mind Your Meds campaign with NE Seattle middle and high schools sending fact sheets home with report cards.  The campaign encourages adults to lock up medications as a way to prevent prescription drug abuse among teenagers. 

While less than 10% of NE Seattle middle and high school students report abusing prescription drugs, the rates of abuse steadily increased among 8^th and 10^th graders since 2008. The Prevention WINS coalition is particularly concerned about this trend considering potential health consequences related with prescription drug abuse. 

Percent of students reporting abusing prescription drugs, Washington State Healthy Youth Survey

Learn more about the Mind Your Meds campaign and what you can do to prevent teen medicine abuse! View and share short clips on the Prevention WINS YouTube page about what NE Seattle parents can do.

Pediatricians recommend strict enforcement of marijuana laws

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released an updated policy statement about marijuana laws on Monday.  One of their recommendations says: 

In states that have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, the AAP strongly recommends strict enforcement of rules and regulation that limit access and marketing and advertising to youth.

In our state, the recreational (I-502) marijuana rules and regulations that are meant to limit access, marketing, and advertising are only effective if they are enforced.  Many policies are based on research conducted on limiting access, marketing, and advertising for alcohol and tobacco.  

One proven way to limit access is to limit the number of stores in a community.  A few bills introduced to the state legislature this session would increase the number of marijuana stores allowed in communities.  Current rules prohibit stores from being 1,000 feet from schools, community centers, and other places young people frequent.  The legislature is considering bills that would reduce this buffer to allow for more marijuana shops. Rules that limit underage access to marijuana not only need to be enforced, they need to be maintained, not made weaker.  

Board of Health urges legislature to align medical and recreational marijuana regulations

Last week, the Washington Poison and Drug Information Center reported a record number of marijuana exposures in Washington State since before recreational marijuana was legalized in 2012.  The majority of calls occurred within the 13 to 19 age range quickly followed by the 20 to 29 age group.  The majority of exposures were a result of intentional abuse in ages 13 and older followed by unintentional, unsupervised ingestion. 

Marijuana products implicated in these exposures included but were not limited to marijuana chocolate bars, brownies, butane hash oil, marijuana-infused drinks, and marijuana gummy bears.  

To address the problem of child and teen exposure to these kinds of marijuana products, the King County Board of Health asked the state legislature for help.  A resolution was adopted during their January meeting that states, in part: 

Whereas, twenty percent of all marijuana-related calls to the Washington Poison Center involved children in King County . . .

Whereas, many edible marijuana products available in medical marijuana dispensaries are designed, packaged and advertised in ways that are attractive to youth, including the development of products such as candies, cookies, chocolates and soda and other sugary drinks . . . 

Whereas, medical dispensaries are not required to ascertain the age of consumers . . .

Whereas, legalization of marijuana for adult use in Washington state may have made access to marijuana easier for people of all ages, including access to edible marijuana products . . . 

The Board of Health calls on the Washington state Legislature to ensure that the marijuana industry in Washington state properly safeguards the health and safety of our children and youth, and to align regulation of the medical marijuana industry with the recreational marijuana market in order to provide an equal level of protection to children and youth in both industries.

What's going on with King County's medicine return program?

When the state legislature failed to pass bills that would establish a statewide medicine return program two years in a row, Prevention WINS joined other substance abuse prevention, healthcare, and environmental organizations to advocate for a program in King County.  Medicine return programs are part of a multi-pronged strategy for preventing prescription drug abuse among teenagers by reducing access to the drugs in homes.

In 2013, the King County Board of Health adopted a secure medicine return program despite threats by drug manufacturers, who would be responsible for the program, of a lawsuit.  Drug companies filed a lawsuit against King County a few months after the policy was adopted.  They had already filed a lawsuit against Alameda County in California which adopted a similar policy in 2012. The drug manufacturers claim that the policy violates the United States Constitution. 

In 2014, a federal appeals court disagreed with the drug manufacturers who are now appealing to the Supreme Court.  The lawsuit against King County is on hold until a final court decision is made in the Alameda County case.  In the meantime, King County is moving forward with the implementation process which will lead to medicine return drop boxes in all pharmacies in the county. 

Teen drug abuse is a community problem that requires prevention activities conducted by multiple organizations.  Like schools implementing prevention programs, parents monitoring the medications in their homes, police hosting regular medicine take-back days, and physicians using the Prescription Monitoring Program, drug manufacturers can play a key role by running take-back programs. 

Juvenile justice holds kids accountable

When Prevention WINS members talk about the need to enforce laws dealing with minors in possession of drugs and alcohol, some community members are alarmed and think that the coalition wants to put teenagers in jail.  This couldn't be farther from the truth.  King County has a robust juvenile diversion program that diverts teenagers from jail and into programs meant to help them.

In the video below, a King County Prosecutor talks about the diversion program and about how it has reduced the number of juveniles in detention facilities.



He notes that "the vast majority, if not all" of teenagers who come into contact with the juvenile justice system have a substance abuse problem.  This is another reason why substance use prevention programs targeting middle school students are so important.  It is also why policies that limit youth access to drugs and therefore prevent youth use of those drugs is important.  Preventing youth substance use can prevent juvenile crime.

Medical marijuana products at school

Cannabis Quencher Strawberry Lemonade was confiscated from a high school student by Seattle Public Schools staff earlier this month.  District staff shared photos:

This product was likely sold as medical marijuana since the label does not meet Liquor Control Board standards for recreational marijuana products.  If sold as recreational marijuana and regulated by the Liquor Control Board it would contain 8 servings.  (1 serving = 10 mg of THC)