Okay. All right. Hi, everyone.

Thank you for logging on and joining us today.

Beth Williams next to me.

So today we're going to be just

doing updates on vaping and marijuana, new

trends, newspaper research out there.

Let me share my screen first.

I wanted to start with giving guys an

update about what the topic is purple club

students have been doing at the schools desktop

share screen slideshow play from the start.

Okay, so this month, in October, it was also October.

It's also known for national substance abuse month.

And then Red Ribbon week is October

23, up until Halloween of this year.

So I wanted to share more pictures with you guys.

But the club kids are still working

on their red ribbon drug prevention posters.

So I'm going to share those

in October when they're finished.

But the middle and high school student

clubs, they made drug prevention red ribbon

posters supporting anti vaping, anti marijuana.

And they made them like Halloween themed.

So I'm going to share those with you guys.

They put facts on there of why know

kids shouldn't be vaping or using marijuana.

And then also at the elementary schools, I

did vape lessons with the fifth graders.

To the left here is some of my, these

are my, some of my middle school club kids.

They signed, I pledged to be babe free.

And then this is just one fifth grade classroom

that I went into, gave my vaping lesson and

all the kids chose to sign there.

I pledged to be vape free.

So pretty cool.

And then next month, I'm going to share with you guys

the posters that all the kids did and share them with

you so you guys can see what they did.

And they're going to be hung up in school, too.

So it's me. Pretty cool. Pretty good.

I wanted to also give another quick update

on a new vaping device that's been out

there for probably not even a year now.

I don't think they're called, they're

called highlight vapes or highlighter vapes.

And they literally look like highlighters cap.

And also they also will say highlight on them.

So even the, the piece where it looks like that's where

you use it or draw, this is a mouthpiece up here.

The cap looks like a regular highlighter cap,

but it's really a THC or marijuana vape.

They're mainly the THC vapes, I think.

Some are just nicotine, I think.

But majority of them are the THC vapes.

And you can easily purchase them online.

I found a few websites where all you had

to do is select, oh, yeah, I'm over 21.

And then it lets you in and you can easily buy them.

So I know a couple of the

sites were blocked from student laptops already.

I guess kids might have been trying to

access the websites, but definitely something to look

out for, unfortunately now paying attention to highlighters

because this is out there now and it's.

It's gonna, you know, eventually come into

our schools, I think so, yeah.

These are refillable.

Yeah, these are the refillable ones.

Yeah.

Not that this, but yeah, they have.

I don't exactly know where the pod part is.

I'm assuming it's at the bottom up here.

Um, but yeah, these are.

It just keeps getting, quote unquote, better and better with

how these companies are trying to trick us so that

the kids can do it in school, unfortunately.

Okay.

And guys, any questions, comments?

Be happy to answer them at the end, or I'll

try to check the queue in chat as well. Um.

Oh, that was the.

I'm going to hand this over to Beth to start talking

about the scope of the problem with marijuana and vaping.

Well, good afternoon.

I'm happy to be back.

Thank you to Madison for allowing me to

chime in today on this important topic.

We've done a lot of stuff on marijuana, but I looked

back and saw it had been back in 2021, I believe,

or the end, early 22 that we had done one.

So we thought we would update a little bit.

With marijuana now being legal in Maryland and with,

as Madison said, you know, making it easier and

easier to access these tools to use marijuana, these

devices, we are interested to see.

The data is not very unchanged yet, because, again, data

takes us a good couple of years between survey.

And I know the school systems do surveys, but

they usually are within about twelve to 18 months

before we can get any good data from them.

But what I could find was that 11% of

young adults reported using marijuana on a daily basis.

And that's up a tiny bit from the last time.

This is not 2021 data that should not be there.

This is recent NIH data.

15% report use in the last month and

43% had used in the past year.

So that's going a little bit, and I

will talk about that in a second.

At the end of this slide, about 16%

of young adults report vaping nicotine and 12%

vaping marijuana or cannabis of some kind.

It might be oils or loaded into

a vaping cartridge, et cetera, CBD, CBD.

So we'll talk a little more about that.

Teens who still have developing brains, of course, are

especially susceptible to the adverse effects and maybe two

to four times more likely than peers who are

non using to develop psychiatric disorders.

What has changed since the last time

we did this presentation is that now

marijuana and cannabis products are legal.

Not, of course, to people under the

age of 21, or is it 1821?

But if something is legal, then it's

going to perceive as being okay.

It's going to be perceived as less risk.

And our youth are getting that message.

They perceive the risk as being even lower than

smoking, which we know it is not, although smoking

is very high risk behavior, also for young people.

But, you know, the message comes down.

Well, now something is legal, so the state

must think it's okay to do it.

Also, you know, it's just like with youth, drinking rates

are always high because it is a legal substance.

Youth use pharmaceutical drugs because they think it's

safe, because it comes from a doctor.

So, you know, these are the

messages that our young people get.

It doesn't even have to be said to them.

They perceive it that way from the

way their, you know, community looks.

So marijuana, as we know, we might be

using marijuana and cannabis kind of interchangeably here,

but marijuana is a mind altering drug.

It's a psychoactive drug, means that, meaning that

it does so, of course, today, meaning that

it does cause some changes in the brain.

The brain does adapt, the brain does

have receptors for cannabis, so it is

readily affected when cannabis or marijuana enters.

The system contains over 500 substances.

But of course, what we hear about the most now is CBD.

And of course, THC.

THC produces the psychoactive or the high effect.

CBD will not produce that intoxicated or that

high, but it will produce other more relaxing

effects for a person that's using it.

Two major strains that we see are indica and sativa.

Sativa is the one that gets people a little more

acting up, a little, if I would say, energetic.

It has more psychedelic or hallucinogenic

qualities, where indica has qualities that

kind of calm a person down.

Usually marijuana is loosely put into one of those

types smoked as a cigarette joint or a roach,

as it's called, or in a vaping device, pipe,

bong, or blunt, which is a hollowed out cigar.

What we're seeing in the vaping device.

And we'll talk a little bit later, but that is,

you know, you can get preloaded, as Madison was saying,

preloaded devices or pre loaded cartridges of THC or CBD.

So it makes it that much easier for our youth.

They don't even have to fill their own cartridge.

They could just pick it up and start to use it.

Marijuana does affect tunnel

vision, does affect driving.

It causes tunnel vision.

We've always heard, you know, well, it's easier

or it's safer to drive with marijuana than

alcohol because marijuana kind of chills you out.

And actually, it is not.

It does affect perception and areas of the

brain that have to do with decision making.

It is addictive.

There is a diagnosis called cannabis use disorder.

We'll talk a tiny bit about that at the end.

And marijuana is what we call a gateway drug.

And I know that's kind of a term that hasn't been

used in a while, but it does certainly cause or add

risk to folks that start using marijuana early to move on

to either other substances or to continue using marijuana.

It's kind of not the marijuana, I was going

to say of your mother or your grandmother, but,

you know, of the 1970s or 1980s.

Back in those days, the THC levels averaged

about 3.7%, where today it averages 15%.

And there are some products that can be bought at

dispensaries that go up to 80% to 90% of THC.

The gold standard, the high shelf, the top shelf kind

of stuff, extracts which are used in vaping and dabbing

and edibles, can contain 40 to up to 90% THC.

So think about the fact that when a

person smokes or vapes, that substance they're smoking

or vaping gets into their lungs almost immediately,

into their bloodstream almost immediately.

And think of that with a youth and with average to

40% to 90% THC that they're getting through vaping is not.

Not a good thing.

I mean, this can be very dangerous, very high risk

for youth, because we know that higher THC levels mean

a greater risk for risky behaviors as well as addiction.

So adolescent use of blank

makes future users more likely.

So you can see here with marijuana.

Adolescent use of marijuana makes future use of

heroin or fentanyl three times more likely.

There's where that gateway drug term comes in.

We know with alcohol as well,

is considered a gateway drug.

Alcohol use in adolescents makes future use of

heroin or fentanyl two times more likely.

So again, you know, not not safe stuff

and very high risk for future health.

I don't think there's any of us that

don't really know what marijuana looks like.

But just as a refresher, it is a green, leafy plant.

It comes from the hemp plant or

affiliated with the hemp family of plants.

When it is dried into buds or, you

know, just a substance on the right, it

can be rolled into cigarettes or joints.

It can be smoked in a pipe or vape.

On the left, you see some commonly seen vapes.

But as Madison showed you, and we're always looking

at stuff that is showing new vaping devices.

We did a presentation not too long ago

that showed what these devices look like and

how easily you can get them. And they're disguised.

I mean, you all know they're disguised as flash drives.

They're disguised as now, markers, pens, you know, whatever

people can market to young people to make it

more appealing and more accessible for young people.

And pipes on the right for marijuana use.

Buds and bongs.

Of course, when it's clumped together

like this, it's called a bud.

And many people will just purchase marijuana a bud at

a time or a couple buds at a time.

A bong is like you see here, a water

pipe that cools down when you light the marijuana.

And we're talking about the leaves now.

We're not talking about the, necessarily the liquids

or the, what am I trying to say?

Or the tinctures or the honeys, but we're

talking about just straight bud or leaf marijuana.

It cools down the smoke so the user

doesn't get a sore of a throat.

Slang names, you know, the ones we hear most

often, Mary Jane Bud blunts, dope, joint, herb, all

kinds of these out there smoke or weed.

Sense of used to be a special blend.

You know, it was a higher THC back in

the day, but all kinds of slang names.

And as we always repeat, you know, slang,

people can make up their own slang terms.

Or if somebody is manufacturing and selling marijuana, they

could make up their own names for it.

And now we have dispensaries, so they're making up

all kinds of really appealing names to people, you

know, sunshine and, you know, all this kind of,

you know, stress free and all this, all these

labels that are now given or used as slang

for marijuana, people can now say, well, I like

that brand better than, you know, something else.

All right, signs of use,

changes in mood, personality, appearance.

You know, the mood can range from a

really high or euphoric feeling, talkativeness, happiness, which

would be using that sativa blend or type

of marijuana versus, you may see depression, sleeping,

lethargy, just really relaxed, really mellow.

That's that indica strain with any substance.

We always want as parents to be

aware of drug friendly speech or attitude.

You know, are our kids wearing t shirts

that advertise, you know, alcohol or other drugs?

Are they, you know, talking about,

oh, it's not that bad?

Oh, you know, it's not going to hurt me.

Everybody does it, you know,

drug friendly speech, impaired judgment.

We see a lot of impaired driving with

marijuana, again, because people don't think it's as

dangerous to drive under the influence because it

calms you down, as opposed to alcohol, which

can get you falling asleep behind the wheel.

So an exaggerated sense of creativity or intelligence

or just thinking, they're just an elevated sense

of just being, you know, it just helps

them be more creative of a person.

More signs, you know, and this is usually what a

lot of parents are, first noticing problems with family.

You know, they don't want to be with the family.

They, when they're with the

family, they're rolling their eyes.

They just don't want anything to do with anything

having to do with family or sometimes even old

friends, you know, dry drowsiness or irritability, paranoia.

We may see social or behavioral problems.

This might be when we start seeing some

minor delinquent behavior, starting maybe losing their temper

very easily, maybe shoplifting to get cash to

buy the drugs, those kind of things.

A lot of times, parents

will see school problems occurring.

It might be the grades are all of

a sudden going down over a semester.

They're not showing up to school.

They're falling asleep on their desk.

They might be skipping classes, you know, just

completely opting out of homework or studying.

So these are the kind of things

that are not that hard to observe.

And again, as with anything, we always like to

repeat that we're looking for patterns of behavior.

So if one or two times your child comes home

from school and they're irritable or they haven't done their

homework, you know, it's not necessarily a cause for alarm.

But if it's starting to happen more frequently, if

the drugs are going, if the, I'm sorry, grades

are going down pretty rapidly, or, you know, just

seems like, you know, all of a sudden things

may be not normal for your child.

Those are the things we want to look at.

What's not feeling normal or looking normal to you

about your child or what is just, you know,

not typical behavior and looking for trends.

So physical signs, you know, you're going to

see the red eyes, the use of eye

drops, a dry cough or a dry mouth.

Remember, if you're smoking it, you're getting very dry,

heavy smoke in your throat and your lungs.

So you'll hear a lot of cough, dry cough, dizziness.

Maybe they're just feeling more slowed down,

more mellow, slowed or slurred speech.

Maybe a little more clumsy.

Those kind of things are what you may see with

marijuana or cannabis use, the effects on the brain.

It does, and this is cannabis.

This is, again, not just marijuana when we're talking about

these effects, it can be on any form of cannabis.

So it could be an edible,

it could be something they're vaping.

We're going to see some mental health effects

because marijuana affects the brain, part of the

brain that influences our pleasure, our pleasure center

in the brain, memory, concentration, time perception, coordination.

So that, again, is where it comes

in with, you know, problems at school,

problems at a job, problems with family.

It's just affecting these types

of areas, especially learning.

Mental health effects could include really unpleasant

or frightening thoughts, feelings of anxiety, paranoia,

hallucinations, maybe even panic attacks.

People used to say, I did substance abuse counseling

for many years through a health department clinic, and

a lot I worked with adolescents, and a lot

of the young people would come in and, you

know, it doesn't hurt me, I'm fine.

It doesn't, you know, I feel much better, I

perform much better at school, you know, and when

we would do education with the youth, you know,

it was, you know, who hallucinates on pot?

Pot is so nothing, you know,

it's so, you know, low risk.

And I had one particular, one student I had

in my program who showed up one morning at

eight in the morning when we were opening the

doors and was absolutely shaking with fear.

He said he had hallucinated and

had almost like a panic attack.

He was sweaty, he was frightened,

he was just confused over pot.

And this was 30 years ago almost.

So it wasn't like it was mixed with

anything to the level that we're seeing now.

This was just pure marijuana that he used to use

all the time, and he had a very bad experience.

So people do hallucinate on marijuana.

There's no doubt about it.

In fact, it's kind of, even though it's categorized

as it's sort of a depressant, it's also a

psychoactive psychedelic drug effects as well with marijuana.

So it is definitely possible

that people can hallucinate.

They might also have depression, suicidal

thoughts, suicide attempts, or even completed

suicides because of the depression.

Temporary psychosis associated often use heavy use, especially

of cannabis, is associated with schizophrenia, especially if

it happens, you know, somebody started using very

early or they were using very frequently.

And often it is with also if there's an

underlying risk anyway for a psychotic illness and impaired

mental functioning, which can go into adulthood, and you

have to think if you've ever known anyone who

has used marijuana for a long period of time,

starting when they were 1213 years old, they've missed

huge chunks of learning in their life.

They've missed not just school learning and the

important things you need to know, but, you

know, how to, you know, control.

I mean, manage money, pay bills, write out a

check, how to apply for a job, how to

do certain tasks that are just everyday tasks.

Because they've missed those chunks of

their developing brain through adolescence, they

haven't acquired that knowledge.

So oftentimes you will see someone going

into rehab who really has to.

It's not even rehabilitation.

It's kind of habilitation.

We have to work with them to learn how

to do the most basic functions of life.

Okay.

Short and long term, just to kind of finish

this section up, we're going to see sedation changes

in appetite, sleep difficulties, a lot of respiratory and

breathing problems with people who use cannabis products on

a regular basis, especially with vapes.

I mean, Madison could definitely talk more

about that than I could, but vaping,

people think it's healthier than smoking.

A lot of people substitute it as smoking tobacco.

But all that, you know, that vapor, that hot

vapor getting into your lungs that, you know, it

can cause even, you know, chronic lung disease in

some people if they do it for too long.

So, yep, you got popcorn lung, which happened

to, which happened to background like COVID.

It happened to quite a

few teenagers across the country.

And you have that.

Do you know how to pronounce it?

Evali or evali.

It's a newer type of lungs disease,

but it's only associated with the THC. Vapes. Wow.

But it's another one.

So the popcorn lung.

Lungs disease is linked to the nicotine vapes.

And then this evali, or evali, it's an

abbreviation for a lungs disease, but they call

it evali or something for short.

And it's associated with THC vapors,

who they all vape THC. And they get.

They have to get it.

And then with both of them,

they're both of those diseases.

The patients are on a breathing

machine for both of them.

So it's pretty serious. It is serious.

And, you know, I would, you know, I believe because

I've done some reading on this as well, you know,

you're getting scarring of the lungs at this.

Not going to repair itself, especially when

you're trying, when you're continuing to use.

And even something similar to a COPD kind of

a thing where people just can't get enough oxygen

in their lungs because their lungs are so damaged.

And of course, many cancers are related or

are kind of associated with heavy cannabis use.

Tumors in reproductive organs, respiratory,

neck and head especially.

So, you know, it's not good to use at any

level, but the more someone uses and gets more accustomed

to it and gets addicted and then uses it to

solve every problem in their life, the more at risk

they're going to be physically okay.

CBD cannabidiol is a single

extract from the cannabis plant.

The FDA has approved only one product, which

is a prescription drug that treats seizures.

And as you may know, also marijuana or,

you know, THC has been used for treating

of other neurological seizures, and that's experimental.

In terms of the FDA over the counter

projects, products containing CBD are not FDA approved.

That means there is no one body, one organization

or administration making sure that these things are safe.

They're not, you know, put through

lab tests and all of that.

So when you use something like CBD over the counter, it

is really at your own risk, because you don't really know

what is in it, how much is in it.

It is not a hallucinogenic or a

psychedelic effect like THC would be.

It's just another chemical.

Of the almost 500 chemicals in the cannabis plant,

it's illegal to market it by adding it to

a food or labeling it as a dietary supplement.

Again, derived from the hemp

plant contains less, if any.

It contains less than 3% of THC, because

that's just naturally found in hemp, but it

does not produce that high feeling.

And the products include the

oil, gummies, capsules, and tinctures.

Again, this could be something that

is vaped and often is vaped.

Can also be found in preloaded cartridges.

People use it because they think it relieves

their pain, it relieves their anxiety, their stress.

It will make you feel more relaxed, but you're

not going to get that high intoxicated feeling.

Research which is going on has shown that it

may relieve pain from MS and arthritis conditions.

It could possibly reduce symptoms of

mental health disorders and might alleviate

certain cancer related symptoms.

But the results in these studies have been mixed.

So we can't say across the board that this is

helpful in terms of disease easing disease side effects.

Again, changes in appetite and weight, fatigue,

possible other effects might include drowsiness, sedation,

possible respiratory concerns, and liver damage.

Very similar to the other cannabis

products interacts with several medications, including,

including those that treat pain, so.

And depression, diabetes and seizures.

So it is advised if someone is going to

use CBD to ease their stress or to take

the edge off a condition of some kind to

try to talk to your physician beforehand because it

can interact with alcohol and with other pharmaceutical drugs.

Okay, what happened here? There we go.

Okay, so when we.

And I'll might rely on you to

help me a little bit with this.

I'm not a vaping expert, but cannabis concentrates for

vaping are typically very highly potent and concentrated with

very high levels of THC, meaning, again, that the

THC is the chemical that causes people to act

out or to do high risk behaviors.

Then you're looking at very high THC levels,

up to four times stronger than high grade

or the top shelf of regular marijuana.

It resembles honey or butter, or

even like a semi solid substance.

And I have some pictures we'll show you.

Commonly used in vaping devices because it is smokeless,

it is odorless, and it is easy to conceal.

A small amount, or what is often called a

dab, can be heated in the vaping device.

And this is what they call dabbing, produces vapors,

which anything in a vapor form will produce, instantly

get into the bloodstream and produce an instant high.

Also will cause more psychological and physically

intense effects than just smoking leaf marijuana.

And then can I add on to this? Of course.

So there's research out there saying that if you are

under 18 and you use a THC vape, you're four

times more likely to become addicted to opioids. Wow.

So that's a big four times more likely.

And, yeah, the THC vapes, they're a

lot stronger compared to if you're smoking

marijuana or if you're consuming edible.

The THC levels are a lot

higher and stronger in THC vape.

And that's the addictive substance.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Interesting about the opioids.

Not surprising.

I'll talk about opioids in a

couple seconds after these next slides.

But again, street names for concentrates, we hear

dabbing or dab wax, shatter, honey, butter, all

of that because of what the consistency.

So here's what some of it looks like.

This distillate here is kind of the, that's the liquid

or the rosin, but usually it's this distillate, as you

can see, has no taste, no smell, not detectable.

So if somebody is vaping that, it's not going

to smell like another marijuana or cannabis product.

It's a liquid that's just pre

loaded into a cartridge and vaporized.

Some of these others, you know, people can use some

of these that are like crumble or these, you know,

looks like crumbled up like peanut brittle or something.

I don't know.

But, you know, that consistency, people can take

chunks of that and put it into.

Would not be able to put that in a

vape, but put it into a small pipe that

you could, you know, light up or heat up.

You wouldn't really light it.

You would heat it up and inhale that.

And then, like, the bubble hash over

here on the left or the.

The keef over here on the right is just

very finely sifted, you know, just chopped and sifted

down into Mari, that's marijuana leaves or marijuana buds.

So people can sprinkle that on other marijuana.

Or they sometimes people just smoke hash as well.

So that's kind of what it looks like, edibles.

You know, we've all seen these, I'm sure still makes

my blood pressure go up when I even think about

edibles, because we in the field, Madison and I have

talked quite a bit about how to talk about medicine

safety and, you know, safety at Halloween for candy.

When we have edibles out there, it really is

quite a conundrum to try to figure out how

to warn people without, you know, having them paranoid

of every single piece of candy that comes home.

It's very tough.

So, you know, this is kind of where you

can, you know, either what we saw, the oils

or the resin or the honey like or butter

like liquid can be very easily added to these.

And these are just examples of some of the.

And you can see the lovely, you know,

marketing stony patch instead of sour patch, you

know, cotton candy here, butterfinger butter.

You know, everything's butter because

that's what the consistency is.

Very dangerous.

And when you look over here at these pieces

of chocolate, typically when the person buys an edible,

they will see if they take the time to

read it on the back of the package.

It will say, take one 8th of a, you know, of

this tiny chocolate bar, or take one, you know, one 8th

of a cookie and eat it at a time.

Do not eat the whole thing.

It would be an incredible amount,

very dangerous amount of THC.

But, you know, oftentimes people who are buying these are

not going to read the directions and be safe.

And so it's up to all of

us to be very vigilant about this.

And you, you know, how we approach

it with our kids is tricky.

You know, you want to basically, you know, ask them

not to take candy from anybody in their class.

So I have heard recently of a couple of cases

of kids bringing it wasn't candy, but what was it?

A cake.

I think to school or a cupcake or something.

And I was sharing it with the other

kids, and about eight kids in that class

got sick because it had THC in it.

What grade was that?

It was not around here.

It was somewhere when I was away on vacation.

I saw it on the news, so it was probably in Florida.

But was it like high school?

No, it was middle school, I think.

Yeah, the kid was just sharing, I don't remember if it

was cake or cookies, but sharing it with the class.

So, you know, we have to be

really careful about what, what happens in

classrooms with, with this kind of stuff.

You see cookies here as well.

That cookie, you know, an appropriate dose would

be about an 8th of that cookie.

And I remember when legalization first happened in Colorado and

people were using edibles and they would come into emergency

rooms because they'd eaten a whole cookie, you know, and

they were very, very sick from that.

When you see kind of sodas

and things like that as well.

Okay.

Gummies are very popularly filled

with cannabis products as well.

We can't go any further without, of course,

talking about fentanyl, which we like to get

out there as often as possible.

Just that marijuana and fentanyl are

very often combined as well.

And with what Madison just said about people vaping

cannabis and then being more prone to go on

to opioids, this could be a prime example.

Maybe people, you know, are looking to blend it because they

don't want to say, well, I'm going to go switch to

totally using an edible, a fentanyl or an opioid.

But there may be, you know, sprinkling

powder over their, you know, leafy marijuana.

They may be liquefying or get liquid fentanyl

and then drop it onto either blotter paper

like this, put it into sprays.

Maybe they're even putting it

into edibles, we don't know.

But, you know, one use of marijuana can be

risky, but the more you use, the more prone

you are, or a marijuana product, a cannabis of

some kind, to move on to other drugs.

And certainly with fentanyl out there, it's

a little bit frightening to think about

people moving on to opioids.

Okay, greening out is just a term

that's used for a cannabis overdose.

People can feel sick for up to 2 hours after

and feel more stronger effects from what they used.

It's more likely to occur with alcohol use

before using marijuana or cannabis, because alcohol in

the bloodstream can speed up absorption of THC.

Typically it occurs with overconsumption.

Somebody using more you know, again, if they're using

an edible and they ate more than they, you

know, should have, that would be considered safe.

They've gone over their tolerance level, and

they can have what's considered an overdose.

And it can, you know, the symptoms

can be very like panic attacks.

What concerns those of us that work in this

field is that use of alcohol and cannabis together

can affect what we call the vomit reflex.

And the vomit reflex is way back near the

brain stem of our brains, and it protects us.

It kicks into gear when there's too

much of a poison in our system.

So when people drink too much alcohol, they can

drink to the point that vomit reflex is completely

turned off because they're so intoxicated that even that

part of the brain is not working.

We want that part of the brain to work

because we want people to get out of their

system what is causing tremendous respiratory and other effects.

But when you use alcohol and cannabis in

larger doses, you can have this effect.

Okay, legalization.

We know that it is legal, not will be legal.

Over 21, you can possess one and a half ounces.

More than one and a half, but less than

two and a half results in a civil fine.

Oh, yeah.

From adults 21 and older, possession of more than two

and a half ounces could be six months in jail.

Adults are able to grow two plants at home,

but it has to be out of the public

view and only able to sell with a license.

Okay, so what can parents do this again, we always

like to end with this kind of a section of

this, because it just, you know, there are things that

parents can do that adults can do.

Any adult that has an effect on young

people, as parents, we want to postpone that

first use, whether it's alcohol or tobacco.

Ideally, we don't want them using those at

all or not until they're of legal age.

So we want to just emphasize the legality.

And I guess with marijuana, too,

that the rules are in place.

The laws are in place because it's

not safe for young people to use.

We want to also has a goal to

establish healthy behaviors, attitudes, and coping skills.

We know that a teen initiating alcohol use

is four times more likely to develop alcohol

dependence, and early tobacco use could be a

gateway to other substances, including marijuana.

Three typical traditional gateway drugs

are alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.

I would say cannabis, because it's obviously the

other ways that someone can use cannabis.

We don't want to pay attention to patterns

of behavior and question or confront in a

factual, caring, and loving way, be informed.

So webinars like this.

I know Madison does a lot of work to

getting information out to parents, so it's really important

to be informed as much as possible.

No available resources in our county or our area.

Reach out when necessary for a reality check.

There's nothing wrong with calling NIDA or the

National Institutes of Health or DEA or any

of those experts in the field of substance

abuse and just asking questions or going onto

their websites or going onto their social media.

It's never, you know, we can

never have too much information.

And things are changing so much right now, as we

saw with the highlighter markers that are really vape devices,

you know, we would not know that unless we kept

ourselves informed and network with other parents as well.

When we know other parents and we have a

group that we all kind of know each other's

kids, that could be invaluable to share.

You know, I saw, you know, so and

so looked like he was smoking there behind

the, you know, stadium at the school.

What's going on?

You know, it's always good to have that support

and to know other people's kids as well.

With your kids, you know, spend

time together and maximize it.

Initiate communication early.

Praise and encourage when they make a positive choice.

So if they are around someone who offers them

a cigarette or offers them marijuana or a vape,

you know, really praise them for not using, you

know, and ask those questions, wow.

What was it that, you know, made you not use that?

I'm so proud of you that, you know, you could do that.

It's so healthy.

Express concern about safety and well being and

consistent messages regarding our disapproval of substance misuse,

being clear with expectations of nonuse.

Helping them establish alternatives

for use and consequences.

We have to be not only say, you better

not ever do that, but here is why.

We don't want you using because it's unhealthy.

If you use, this will be the consequence.

And we have to be prepared as parents, as hard

as it is to enforce those consequences and those boundaries.

Help them develop ways to resist

and be comfortable saying no.

Have an exit plan. I know the D. A. R. E.

Program does a really good job of this

in terms of helping kids say no.

Having a, you know, way to get out of

a situation that's uncomfortable can be a phone or

a texting word or a ready excuse for no.

You know, my parents would freak out if they found out.

I'd be in so much trouble.

Okay.

Eating this is always my favorite thing.

Madison probably gets really sick of hearing me say

this, but one of the prevention so called strategies,

I guess you could call it activities, is, has

been proven to be a deterrent to substance.

Initiating substance use in younger people.

Eating meals together as often as possible can decrease

youth or seeing substance use by up to 50%.

And that has nothing to do

with the food that's being served.

That has to do with being connected with a family,

being together with parents and kids, communicating, taking a little

time out from the outside world and just having a

safe place where people can share a meal and, you

know, share what's going on in their life.

Even if you're one of those parents who's, you know,

driving your kids back and forth to practices and, you

know, soccer and games and activities, you know, we can

still eat in the car with our kids, you know,

fast food for ten minutes in the car.

And I always found that being in the car

is a good place to talk anyway because your

kids are kind of captive in the car.

As I was going to say,

you can't go anywhere you're driving.

It's a good way to bring up conversation or

just like another like, bonding experience that makes sense

with your child eating some good food if it's

just fast food, talking about your day or whatever.

I mean, take out their earbuds if you have to.

I would, but yeah, it's a good bonding experience.

Exactly.

Something as simple as eating a meal together.

And again, it can be peanut butter

and jelly sandwiches in the car.

It could be eating on the bleachers before practice.

There's something, you know, there's something very

special about sharing a meal anyway.

So when you do that with your kids, it's like a

little time out, a little backing up out of their day.

So we always encourage that.

And we all, we do know also from

what the research has shown is that youth

report that they look to their parents first

for guidance on decision making and problem solving,

especially around alcohol, marijuana, cigarette use.

So, you know, they're watching us.

They're looking to us for answers.

Not that we have all the answers, because

we don't, but we can be reassuring.

We can, you know, help them walk through a problem.

Yeah.

And setting those like, boundaries and setting consistent

consequences will go a really long ways when

it comes to teen substance use.

If you think your child is using or, you

know, they use or even as like a preventative

measure, setting those consequences and then actually following, following

through with it because they'll, I mean, they'll see

that it's not just, oh, let's have a conversation

with our kid and then see what happens.

You have to be clear about your boundaries and

consequences, and this will happen and follow through.

We're also kind of going to like their teenagers are going

to walk all over, not take it seriously, and they're going

to continue seeing their peers use it or do it.

They're just going to basically, it's going to

go in one year, out the other.

So, and they will probably test you.

So it's probably good, even when they're

very small, to set this up.

You know, if this happens, if somebody offers

you candy that you don't know where it

came from, you need to not use that.

You know, this is why it could not be safe for you.

If somebody offers you a cigarette, you

want to, you know, not use that.

And if you do use a cigarette, you know, we're

going to have to have a consequence of some kind.

And they will test that because, you know, when kids are

toddlers and you say, don't pick up that ball over there,

and the first thing they do is walk over and pick

up that ball and look at you and smile, kids are

going to test, but if they know early on what the

consequences are, it's not going to be a surprise to them

when that consequences comes up again.

We kind of put on the bottom parent now, friend later.

Parenting is hard work and we all know we want

to, you know, have good experiences with our kids.

But when our kids are older and

they're healthy and they're productive, good adults,

that's when we can be their friends.

And it really is a very validating experience

to have that, if you can have that. So.

So that's our prevention lesson for the day. Right.

Anything else?

Madison for the year afternoon lunch session.

Yes, for your session.

I'm just putting this in because one of

the programs I consult with is Marilyn Ropta.

This is through the University of Maryland Extension

Service, and we offer this through a special

grant for opioid overdose reduction prevention.

So we offer mental health first aid, which is

a long course, about 7 hours or so.

We have overdose lifeline, which are one time courses

that we have good opioid course, we have a

good addiction in the brain course, Botvin life skills

and then some regrounding our response, which are longer,

kind of a deeper dive into what is addiction,

what are adverse childhood experiences.

It kind of gives a more in depth education.

I don't think I have it on here.

This is not a very good slide, but if you

go to Maryland, Ropta, R o p t A.

We are on the social media channels and outlets.

We have a website, so please look that up.

These courses are free of charge,

particularly on the eastern shore.

We work a lot with outreach to

rural and farming families, all of that.

So please look up Maryland oropta, and we

can get you set up with the program.

Okay, does anybody have any questions?

Any questions upon here?

I don't know what just happened.

I'm trying to find that.

Oh, that's what happened.

Anybody have any questions, comments?

Well, thank you for clicking on.

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All right, thank you, everybody.

Have a great rest of your

afternoon, and stay safe this Halloween. Yeah.

Stop. Share.

And then I'm going to end.