Poll: Marijuana Use Among Medfield Youth
How concerned are you about marijuana use in Medfield?
Medfield often receives praise for its small-town community atmosphere and strong school system, but similar to 23 other towns in the region, Medfield adolescents are not immune from the dangers of alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drug abuse, according to the 2010 MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey results.
Administered every other year since 2006 to Medfield students, “the recent survey results give the Medfield school system and members of our community the opportunity to track key health and wellness issues affecting our youth,” said Bob Maguire, Medfield Superintendent of Medfield Public Schools. “Most importantly, it gives us the opportunity to work with students, parents and community leaders on how to address key issues. Sharing the results is always an important step.”
At 7 p.m. on Nov. 14 in the Lowell Mason Auditorium at Medfield High School, Medfield parents and community members will have the opportunity to:
- Learn about key survey findings relative to substance use from Medfield’s K-12 Wellness Content Specialist Susan Cowell;
- Hear about the latest findings showing the potential impact of drugs on adolescent brain development from Susan Andersen, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital;
- Gain critical parenting strategies from Jon Mattleman, a mental health professional with 30 years of experience working with families in the MetroWest region on drug/alcohol use, suicide prevention, loss, and other issues impacting youth.
Mattleman’s presentation, funded by Medfield Coalition for Public Education, will be a key component of the Nov. 14 event, according to Cowell. Mattleman will draw from his professional experiences working with youth and their families, and his personal experiences as a parent of two college-age children. Critical topics he will cover include parent-child communications techniques, and strategies for preventing and addressing drug use.
“The earlier parents talk with their children about drugs and other risky behaviors, the better chance they’ll have at preventing those behaviors,” Cowell said. “While the data reflects the self-reported behaviors of students who were in the 7th through 12th grades last year, the presentation is meant to help parents of students currently in grades 4 through 12 navigate this difficult but important topic.”
The MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey is part of a 10-year initiative to monitor trends in health and risk behaviors. Based on 2010 responses, more than 34,000 students in grades 7-12 from 24 towns took the anonymous survey. This group’s collective data is referred to as the MetroWest regional data.
According to Cowell, Medfield’s local data reflects the regional data very closely, and will be shared at the Nov. 14 event. Regional data on all health topics surveyed can be found at the MetroWest Health’s website.
The event is sponsored by Medfield Cares About Prevention (MCAP), a group comprised of school staff, parents and community leaders dedicated to raising awareness about and preventing drug and alcohol abuse among Medfield youth. MCAP thanks the Coalition for its financial support of the Nov. 14 presentation.
On Tuesday, Fox 25 aired a story, “Has decriminalization influenced teens’ perception of marijuana?” to take a closer look at marijuana use amongst youths.
So Medfield on the topic of marijuana use by youths in town, we want to know…
Today’s question: How concerned are you about marijuana use in Medfield?
Don't see your answer below? Want your voice to be heard or expand on your answer? Click here to leave a comment!
Jillian Galloway
4:06 pm on Thursday, November 3, 2011
Prohibitionists, like President Obama, like to label marijuana a "harmful substance", however marijuana is far LESS harmful than beer and wine which are LEGAL, and is also far LESS harmful than the federal marijuana prohibition which causes the arrest of 850,000 people every year and draws drug dealers into our communities and around our children!
It is outrageous to have the federal government ban stores from selling legally-grown marijuana to adults when this ban *doesn't* prevent people from buying, selling and using marijuana and it *does* make marijuana easily available to children by creating large profits for drug dealers where otherwise there would be NONE.
Chris McCue Potts
10:10 am on Friday, November 4, 2011
Adults can debate all they want about marijuana legalization, but the focus here is on adolescent use. Even the most vocal proponents of legalization are totally against kids under 18 using marijuana (and alcohol) because of the potential dangers to developing brains and bodies. Residents of communities like Medfield need to work together to help youth stay away from marijuana and other drugs. The focus here is on preventing our kids from being harmed by drug use -- including resisting peer pressure to buy and use. There are concrete steps we can all take now to protect our kids vs. debating policy issues.