Scouting, Volume 69, Number 4, September 1981 Page: 31
98, E1-E24, [16] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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PARTI
MAKUUANA
WHAT IT IS
WHAT IT DOES
AND WHAT ITS DOING TO OUR KIDS
THE SCENE: A wealthy Washington, D.C.,
suburban community in Montgomery County,
Maryland. A 12 year old goes off excitedly to his
first school dance of seventh and eighth graders
only. The carpool mother who picks him up
afterwards notes his glumness and asks what's the
matter. He seems eager to talk. It's a chance to "get
it off his chest"—perhaps to ask for help. This is
what he said:
"All around the school there were people get-
ting drunk on beer, wine, bourbon, whiskey,
anything they could find. People were throwing
up all over, some people were even crying they
were so drunk.
"One-quarter of the dancers were high on pot.
One person didn't even know where he was. Again
a few people were crying because they felt awful.
Most everybody was smoking cigarettes. I don't
know if they were dusted. [Laced with PCP or
Angel Dust, an extremely dangerous drug often
sprinkled into pot to 'up' the potency.] One person
was having trouble breathing and they had to call
a rescue squad."
This party is typical of happenings in countless
cities, suburbs, and rural areas throughout Amer-
ica. Parents, ostrich-like, refuse to see what is
going on. Putting their heads in the sand, they
think, means not having to deal with the problem.
It also opens the possibility of losing their children
to marijuana, and perhaps to other illegal drugs as
well. (According to the 1980 National High School
Senior Survey, sponsored by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse, 46 percent of the twelfth graders
who smoked pot at all during the year also "did"
one or more additional illegal drugs.)
By high school graduation time, 60 percent of
the students will have smoked pot; and one out of
11 seniors will have smoked pot daily, averaging
3'/2 joints (marijuana cigarettes) a day. What is
equally disturbing: virtually all recent drug abuse
surveys show that pot is descending to even lower
grade levels; in some areas starting as young as the
fourth and fifth grades, with the fastest growing
usage at the junior high school level.
One reason for this epidemic is that the general
public knows so little about marijuana. Research
scientists, on the other hand, know a lot about it.
And, aside from the fact that one chemical in
marijuana (THC) stops some cancer chemother-
apy patients from vomiting—none of the news is
good. Marijuana has a wide range of subtle,
insidious physical and psychological effects.
What's more, the younger the user, the more
damaging the effects.
Dr. Carlton Turner, who heads the National
Institute on Drug Abuse Marijuana Project in
Mississippi, has read and summarized more than
5,000 cannabis research papers published in sci-
entific journals from 1965 to 1979. (Cannabis is
the plant from which marijuana and hashish are
Make no
mistake about
it Marijuana
use among our
children is
epidemic, and
its harmful
effects on their
minds and
bodies has been
clearly
documented by
reputable
scientists
throughout the
world.
BY PEGGY MANN
Illustration by Daniel Maffia
Scouting September 1981
31
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 69, Number 4, September 1981, periodical, September 1981; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353625/m1/33/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.