HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 5 - Public Comments - LippittFrom: James Lippitt <kathleen.lippitt@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2021 7:47 PM
To: Jill Galvez <jmgalvez@chulavistaca.gov>
Cc: Andrea Cardenas <acardenas@chulavistaca.gov>; Steve C. Padilla <spadilla@chulavistaca.gov>;
Steve C. Padilla <spadilla@chulavistaca.gov>; John McCann <jmccann@chulavistaca.gov>; Mary Salas
<MSalas@chulavistaca.gov>; CityClerk <CityClerk@chulavistaca.gov>
Subject: Opinion: San Diego Teens Have Higher Aspirations Than a Future in Marijuana by written by
teen members of Advocates for Change Today
Kathleen Lippitt, MPH
Public Health Practitioner and Public Policy Advocate
Coastal Communities Drug Free Coalition
Email: Kathleen.lippitt@gmail.com
Cell:
Times of San Diego 4.10.21 by Concerned San Diego teens *
Opinion: San Diego Teens Have Higher Aspirations Than a Future in
Marijuana
Ask us what we want to be when we grow up. We’ll tell you we imagine ourselves
becoming doctors, teachers, firefighters, chefs, engineers, or attorneys.
Some of us are born entrepreneurs. We dream of opening our own businesses or
nonprofit organizations. Some of us are even more ambitious: We dream of becoming the
President of the United States. None of the kids we know dream of becoming budtenders.
But that’s not the message marijuana industry lobbyists are telling our local elected
representatives. To hear them and their allies speak, you’d think they were giving voice
to our hopes and dreams for the future.
We’d like to set the record straight: The kids we know have higher aspirations for
ourselves and one another. That’s because we see recreational marijuana for what it is:
an industry that takes advantage of people’s despair and insecurities and thrives on
addiction. The marijuana industry is not our friend.
You see, we’re teenagers who grew up right alongside San Diego’s marijuana
industry. Over the past decade, we’ve watched it change our neighborhoods from the
inside out. For the most part, the change has not been for the better.
Take for example the industry’s intimidating presence in residential neighborhoods
and small business corridors south of Interstate 8. Billboards, sign spinners and party
buses plastered with marijuana advertisements are everywhere, posted near community
parks, schools, churches, family health clinics, and libraries. They grab our attention as
we walk and bike through our neighborhoods. Many of these ads are illegal.
But most industry actors don’t seem to care, since state and local laws designed to
protect kids and families from marijuana advertisements often are not enforced.
The ads scream for attention, projected in eye-popping colors like bright pink,
yellow, green, and blue. Many feature young women and people of color. All of them
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promote marijuana as a fun, hip, and healthy lifestyle choice — something the cool,
popular people enjoy.
What the ads don’t tell San Diegans is the dark side of marijuana: It’s addictive. It’s
harmful. And it’s changing what it means to call San Diego our home.
Five to ten years from now, when we’ve graduated and are ready to enter the
workforce, what will San Diego’s economy look like? Will it still be a city powered by
science, tourism, and technology?
Or will San Diego be known as a party town, where marijuana is as common as craft
beer, and people can live in a world that exists only when they’re high?
What about the rest of us, who live in the real world?
Is San Diego a region whose leaders value cannabis industry tax revenue more than
creating the meaningful jobs of the future? Will it be a place where we can find
rewarding careers, raise our families, and live in healthy and safe communities?
Will San Diego be a place we’ll be proud to call our home?
These are questions we expect our elected officials to consider carefully before
allowing the cannabis industry to expand its footprint in communities throughout San
Diego County.
In the meantime, we invite our elected representatives to speak to us directly about
our hopes and dreams for the future, instead of empowering the cannabis industry to
define what the future holds for us.
We’re the voters of tomorrow. We’re listening and we’re watching.
*This article was written by teen members of Advocates for Change Today, a coalition
committed to promoting substance abuse prevention in central San Diego, and Project
A.W.A.R.E. a mentoring program for teens and young adults.
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