Tag Archives: SAM Maine

It’s official (still), the marijuana experiment in Colorado has failed

If there has been any doubt that the legal marijuana policy in Colorado has been a failure, new numbers from US Health and Human Services seal the deal.  The new 2013-2014 report of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that Colorado is now 1st in the nation for past month use of marijuana […]

Marijuana legalization stalls in Ohio

On this election night, one of several issues Ohioans were voting on was an initiative to legalize marijuana.  The initiative was Issue 3, written and pushed by the legalization group, ResponsibleOhio.  Issue 3 asked Ohio voters if they wanted to legalize marijuana, and set up a 10-grower monopoly.  Issue 3, and more specifically ResponsibleOhio also gave […]

The Big Marijuana takeover of legalization efforts in Maine

The one area of common ground I had with Paul McCarrier and his group Legalize Maine was that we both agreed that Big Marijuana (aka Marijuana Policy Project; aka Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol) would be bad for Maine.  Certainly, we parted ways on the reasons why we didn’t want Big Marijuana here.  I […]

HHS finds marijuana use up 12%, perception of harm down

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services found that marijuana use among all Americans 12 and over – especially those over 26 – significantly increased in 2014 compared to 2013. The number of 16 and 17 year-olds using marijuana in the past month also increased, (14.2% versus 15.0%). “We should not be surprised […]

Governor LePage Administration and Major Maine Health Organizations Oppose Marijuana Legalization Bills

On Wednesday, a large coalition of leading behavioral health, medical, and public health organizations testified in opposition to LD 1380 and LD 1401, bills that would legalize recreational marijuana in Maine AUGUSTA – Despite efforts of marijuana legalization advocates to spin marijuana legalization as inevitable, a large coalition of organizations joined forces to strongly oppose […]

Big Tobacco 2.0

Hello and welcome to the first proper blog entry on Smart Approaches to Public Health.  It is a happy coincidence that the unveiling and launch of this blog was on the same day as another important unveiling. Today, Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) released a video entitled “Big Tobacco 2.0”  The video draws parallels […]