AFM works to inform youth on marijuana legalization

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This article was published 06/10/2017 (2393 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An addictions worker working with youth in the Hanover School Division wants students to know that just because cannabis will soon be legal that does not mean it doesn’t come with risks, and he is now working to make sure youth are as educated and informed as possible before making decisions on using marijuana.

“Just because a drug is legal that doesn’t make it safe,” Daniel Dacombe, a councillor in the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba (AFM) Youth School-Based Services Program said. “That would be the primary message, that legalizing cannabis doesn’t magically make it safe overnight.

“There are harms associated with it now, and those harms are going to continue when it is legalized.”

Dacombe works with students in schools throughout the Hanover School Division, giving presentations to schools and classes, and also meeting individually with students.

He said even before it was officially announced that recreational marijuana use would be legalized in Canada by the summer of 2018, students had been asking him for years about the possibility of legalization.

“When it comes to marijuana, questions about the legalization have come up in every single presentation I have done,” he said. “And with some young people the attitude is that it’s going to be legal, so why shouldn’t I try it?”

Dacombe said there are serious dangers and risks that can come with youth using marijuana, and he and his colleagues are working to educate students about those risks.

According to Dacombe, young people’s brains don’t start to fully develop and solidify until between the ages of 21 and 25, so using marijuana at a young age can negatively and permanently effect the development of the brain.

“So the message becomes, ‘here are some really good reasons you should delay that use until you’re older, until your brain is developed,’” he said.

The “demotivation” impact of marijuana use is another risk that Dacombe said could affect young people who use the drug.

“Marijuana is known to have a demotivation affect,” he said. “It demotivates you, it makes you really feel ok with sitting on the couch all day and doing nothing and that’s not useful for getting to class, doing your homework, or showing up to your part-time job.”

For Dacombe, a large part of educating students is asking them what they would like to accomplish in life, and if marijuana use is something that might hold them back, or impact those plans and goals.

“I ask them what are your goals? What do you want to accomplish in life? And how does this play into that, and could this put those goals at risk?”

Dacombe also wants to make sure he never “talks down” to students when it comes to issues of drug use.

“I work hard to build a good rapport with the student that I work with,” he said. “We need to engage with them honestly and talk about what the science is telling us and what the research is showing.

“We do so in a non-judgmental and non-confrontational way and that seems to be getting a lot more buy-in than telling them they are bad or making them feel stupid.

“You can’t talk down to them, because they are smart and they do their research.”