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National Families in Action issues a new report, “Tracking the Money That’s Legalizing Marijuana and Why It Matters,” to mark its 40th Anniversary. The report tracks the money three billionaires spent to persuade Americans that marijuana is harmless, a medicine, and should be legal.
Download a news release about the report here.
Download the report here.

 

What Will Legal Marijuana Cost Employers? is a new white paper National Families in Action has created for employers. Written by NFIA’s president and CEO Sue Rusche and co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijauna (SAM) Kevin Sabet, PhD, the paper is designed to help employers understand the impact marijuana legalization will have on their ability to conduct business. Challenges to drug-free workplaces, assertions that employees should be able to use medical marijuana on the job and health plans should pay for it, and other demands are underway in legalization states. Suggestions to help cope with such changes are included.

 

The Marijuana Report.Org is National Families in Action’s newest website. It aggregates stories about marijuana covered in the print and broadcast media. Stories are briefly summarized on the Home Page. Clicking “Read” at the end of each summary accesses the original article. Story summaries are organized under more than 50 categories. Clicking on any yellow category accesses all summaries published under that category. Pages across the top provide in-depth analyses of key issues (Reports, Commentary) and tools (Fact Sheets, Infographics, Tool Kits) to educate leaders about various aspects of this complex and poorly understood issue.

 

President Jimmy Carter keynoted a workshop hosted by National Families in Action in Atlanta on May 17-18, 2013. Designed for state legislative and executive-branch leaders from Colorado, Washington, and other states, the workshop had two goals. The first goal was to encourage states that legalized commercial marijuana to prevent that industry from marketing to children like the tobacco and alcohol industries do. The second goal was to help other states seek marijuana policies that neither incarcerate low-level offenders nor legalize the drug. Noted scientists from several different disciplines presented at the workshop. All presentations were videotaped and may be viewed here.

 

But What About the Children? explains why legalizing marijuana is a bad idea. Legalization removes society’s ability to prevent a commercial marijuana industry from marketing to children like the tobacco and alcohol industries do. All three industries know that addiction begins in childhood. The younger children are when they start using an addictive drug, the more likely they will become addicted—and lifetime customers. In 2010, we developed 12 provisions that any law legalizing marijuana should include, based on lessons learned from efforts to reduce underage smoking and drinking. We also began blogging here and more recently on The Huffington Post as well.

 

Previous Projects: The Addiction Studies Program provided those who shape public opinion (journalists) and public policy (state executive and legislative leaders) with an understanding of the science that underlies drug use, abuse, and addiction. National Families in Action partnered with Wake Forest University School of Medicine to conduct this program from 1999 through 2014. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse the journalists’ program sought to help reporters attain the highest standards of scientific accuracy in writing their drug stories. Two additional partners, the Treatment Research Institute and the National Conference of State Legislatures joined the states’ program to help state governments improve their drug policies based on science.

The Parent Corps. In 2003, National Families in Action obtained a $4.2 million grant from Congress to create and conduct a pilot program of the Parent Corps at 19 schools in 9 states. From each school, we recruited, trained, and employed a Parent Leader whose job was to educate and mobilize the school’s parents into drug prevention. Principals report these results: communications with parents doubled and student attendance and grades increased, while discipline problems and drop-out rates decreased. The pilot program ended in 2007 but continued in Georgia with private funding for three more years. Congressman John Lewis has introduced The National Parents Corps Act in every Congress since the pilot program to make the Parent Corps permanent.