- [Announcer] Special thanks to tonight's sponsor, Portside Realty.

- We are 1% For Maine, a foundation associated with Portside Real Estate Group that is dedicated to giving back to Maine's youth.

As real estate agents, we give 1% of our top-line revenue to the foundation and then work closely with Maine Community Foundation to identify grants that are offering sustainable solutions to some of the largest issues that Maine's youth face.

We are working hard to create a better tomorrow for Maine's youth that we know is possible.

This is one of the many reasons we are excited to support Voices of Hope.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Maine's natural beauty can't hide that many of our friends and family become attached to addictive drugs and alcohol.

This series is intended to draw attention to this reality while humanizing, educating, and elevating the potential for change.

The people we profile demonstrate that transformation and serve as an inspiration for those still struggling.

Please join us as we introduce you to Maine's Voices of Hope.

(gentle music) - It is getting worse.

We are hearing far more complaints into the schools with the youth, the accessibility of cannabis and its byproducts, the edible market, the concentrates.

- There's a very clear connection now between high-potency marijuana and regular marijuana use and violence.

We have done a study on the mass shooters.

The majority of them have been connected with marijuana.

Either they used it long term.

The guy in Uvalde, Texas is a prime example of that.

He was a marijuana user.

His grandmother tried to get him off marijuana.

That day, he shot her in the face and then went to the school and killed all those children.

He was a marijuana user.

(somber music) - I started consuming marijuana at a young age, and it was my be-all end-all.

I went off to college, later worked as a bud tender.

I had the THC necklace, a Dodge joint belt My life revolved around marijuana.

It was my, you know, career.

It was my entertainment.

It was what I thought was my medicine, and when I thought about marijuana, it was just, I thought, like, a normal everyday product that I used that made me happy.

When I started working at the dispensary, I was never high because I took it seriously.

This was a job where we are selling a medical product to people that can make a significant difference in their lives.

That's what I thought, but my coworkers were definitely high a lot.

They were younger.

They were high in the morning.

During breaks, people would come back reeking, and I always thought, "That's crazy.

"Why would they do that?"

But then I started to do that.

Like, I would hang out with someone during break, and so I would be high at work too.

People would get high, and we would make mistakes.

There were times when, unfortunately, we would have edibles.

You'd have a 100-milligram edible or a 10-milligram edible, but they would give the patient the wrong one, and they would eat it with a terrible effect.

- Medical marijuana dispensaries are certainly subject to being sued and liable because across the board they engage in giving medical advice to people that come to them.

- And we were, in fact, the guinea pigs for my marijuana corporation's products.

We got them at a deeply discounted rate, sometimes just a dollar, a dollar for 50 milligrams worth of gummies or a dollar for a vape cartridge.

In the morning meetings, we would go over how the experience was, and we had to write about it and submit how the strain... We had strain of the week.

How did Gorilla Glue make you feel?

And sometimes it was hard because we would have so many products, and we were expected to consume them, and there came a point where we would get these e-mails: "I know it's hard to do your homework, "but the laboratory really needs to know what's going on."

- Most of the studies that have been done on marijuana were done on that low-potency marijuana.

These are studies showing that there was damage at that level of THC.

There is no question that high-potency THC causes mental illness and causes a lot of other problems.

Marijuana is a hallucinogen, and that is how it's legally classified, so if you have a well-regulated sale, and you're selling 20, 30% THC, you are causing damage.

Well-regulated damage, but you're causing damage.

- I know that when I worked in the dispensary, that my patients, after the high-potency THC concentrates came out, their behavior changed.

There was, like, a big dark cloud that just descended over the dispensary.

We would have customers that would have this rage at us.

They had intermittent explosive disorder.

They would get extremely upset.

They would threaten to come to the dispensary and shoot us, threatened to stab someone in the face, and I didn't know what was going on.

I thought, "This is so bizarre because marijuana is known," or what the plant I knew was about mellow and peace and happiness, and that was not happening.

I was seeing very dark energy from other users and patients.

Well, I once thought that marijuana was very benign.

It was a natural plant, I thought, until I consumed what are called the dabs, the high-potency THC concentrate.

With the marijuana, the first time I did the dab hit, I just felt a tremendously more powerful effect than when I did cocaine.

It was when I felt my, again, the flooding, the flooding of a feel-good flooding feeling.

That was very powerful, very powerful, and I wanted more.

I absolutely wanted more of that, and my friends were very concerned, and they tried to say, "Look, we don't think this is right.

"You've changed.

What happened?

"You used to just smoke a bowl.

Now what's going on?

"This is really bad, and you need to stop."

However, I didn't want to stop.

I wanted to just do more, and I started doing a lot of concentrate just by myself.

The neurological problems were getting worse, and I also started to experience these daydreams of committing violent acts, and I first thought about beating someone in the head with a baseball bat, and these were basically patients at the time who came to the dispensary and also coworkers, and then, later, the thoughts were escalating.

I thought about stabbing people, and then, eventually, shooting people with a gun, and while all this was going on, I was unfortunately still dabbing, and then, for a while, I thought about finding my CEO and torturing him and killing him.

In my eyes, he wouldn't have been a human, so there would've been nothing wrong with that, and this went on for months.

People noticed a substantial change in my behavior.

I'm not a type of person who would ever resort to violence, but I was getting close.

I had those knives on me.

I was terrified.

I thought I was justified that humans were not humans.

They were the shape-shifting reptilians, and they were coming to kill me because I knew about the Illuminati conspiracy.

I started to hate myself at that point.

What I didn't understand was I was experiencing cannabis-induced psychosis, which is paranoia and hallucinations, and I really wanted to just end my life.

I have actually read that people who have cannabis-induced psychosis, and they stop using marijuana, that's actually a very dangerous time.

That's a time when they kill themselves because that's how I felt.

I felt like I'll never have joy ever again.

There'll never be anything that'll make me happy because unfortunately, my brain had been hijacked by high THC, and I saw the harms in other people, but I did not recognize the harms in myself, and people need to understand when you're in cannabis-induced psychosis, you don't think you're in psychosis.

You think what you're experiencing is reality.

- It doesn't surprise me that she's talking about psychosis and imagining violence.

We've dealt with it firsthand.

If we're focusing just on cannabis, we have experienced individuals that I have seen start at 12 and are attacking police officers at 16, 17 years of age, violently, with their sole admission of it started with a joint, and now it's rolling into concentrates and incredible amounts of consumption of cannabis, so her saying that does not surprise me at all because we've dealt with it firsthand.

- My name is Ken Finn.

I'm a pain medicine physician.

I've been practicing in Colorado Springs for over 25 years.

I am the current president of the American Board of Pain Medicine.

I am the editor of the first U.S. medical textbook, "Cannabis in Medicine: An Evidence-Based Approach" with over 70 authors in four countries and 20 chapters.

If you're looking at all the substances, and this is based on peer-reviewed medical literature of all the substances that can convert to psychosis, marijuana is the highest substance that has the conversion rate.

I think 47% have potential to convert to psychosis, much higher than methamphetamine, cocaine, opioids, and alcohol.

- I think this is going to get worse.

I talk to my colleagues across the area, across the state.

This is something that's not unique to Falmouth.

This is something that is playing itself out, but I can tell you as a chief here, it is evident, and just into the streets, into the homes, and now hearing it, the challenges within the schools, and it's going to get worse.

- And the European data shows that if you're using anything more than 10% THC, you have a fivefold increased risk of first-episode psychosis, and again, a lot of our youth have access to concentrates that are, you know, 45 to 65, 75% THC, and then you get into the dabs, waxes, and shatters that are pushing 80, 85, some claiming 100% THC.

These are very dangerous products 'cause we're in uncharted waters.

We do not know what the long-term impact of these high-potency products are really going to be.

Ian David Long is an example in Thousand Oaks, California several years ago was a mass shooter.

He shot and killed 12 people, I think, at the minimum, and I have his toxicology report in hand, and there was only one substance in his system, and it was THC.

There was no illicit substances, no synthetic cannabinoids, alcohol, benzodiazepines, and he was a mass shooter.

Kevin Neal from Northern California several years ago was a marijuana grower.

Apparently didn't like his wife.

I think he shot and killed her.

Stuffed her in a hole under their mobile home.

Didn't like a couple of neighbors.

Shot and killed a couple of them.

Went down the street to try to shoot up a school, and I think at least four people were killed in that instance, and I have his toxicology report, and there was only one substance on his drug testing, and it was THC, not synthetic cannabinoids, not alcohol or other illicit substances.

I think we talked a little bit about Kristine Kirk, who was a woman here in 2014.

Shortly after legalization, her husband went out and bought a bunch of edibles and became acutely psychotic.

There was no other explanation for his acute psychosis other than his ingestion of a large amount of THC edibles, and he became acutely psychotic, and so she got on the phone with 911 requesting help, and in the middle of her phone call, he had gone to the gun safe, pulled out a gun, and shot and killed her in front of their children, and now he's serving 30 years in prison.

Blair Ness in Dallas was a 32-year-old father who brutally murdered his 16-month-old son in the middle of the day.

I mean, there were skull fragments in the apartment.

The apartment smelled like marijuana, and I have the child's autopsy report who was stabbed dozens of times, and I have the dad's toxicology report, and there was only one substance in his system, and it was THC.

Three weeks before the Planned Parenthood shooter here in Colorado, we had the Halloween shooter, who killed a military veteran, killed, shot, and killed two women ironically in drug recovery before the police shot him in downtown Colorado Springs, and I have his toxicology report.

There was only one thing in his system, and it was THC, and so even though, I mean, not everybody, like I said, that uses THC has become a homicidal maniac, but it is a risk factor.

I can tell you that law enforcement are very well aware of the issues surrounding cannabis and violence.

Medical examiners and coroners are completely oblivious to the link between cannabis use and death.

Medical examiners and coroners need to start reading the literature on the impacts of cannabis on multiple organ systems, including the heart and brain because they need to account for that as a potential contributing factor to somebody's demise.

- So we continue to see more and more acts of violence, bizarre behavior in the public, in private.

This is something when I started in '97 we probably would have five or six what we would refer to as mental health calls a month.

We're now dealing with about 10 a week, and this is a small community.

(anxious music) - [Narrator] Colorado was the first state to legalize marijuana, and our research into their experiences led us to Laura Stack.

Laura is a Colorado mom whose son Johnny committed suicide after developing cannabis-induced psychosis.

- I'm Laura Stack, the founder and the CEO of Johnny's Ambassadors.

I formed Johnny's Ambassadors in May of 2020 after our, my husband John and I's 19-year-old son Johnny died by suicide after becoming psychotic from dabbing high-potency marijuana concentrates in Colorado, where we live, and our mission now at Johnny's Ambassadors is to educate parents, teens, and communities about the very real dangers of today's high-THC marijuana products, particularly on adolescent brain development, mental illness, and suicide.

We are committed to saving our youth from the harms of today's marijuana.

This is Johnny's life-and-death story.

I don't know what you think of when you think of someone with a drug addiction.

This is who I think of.

I think of my son Johnny.

This is Johnny.

As you can see, he was a very happy, smiling, busy, active young man.

He was a track.

He ran track and cross-country.

He played the guitar and the piano.

He also was incredibly intelligent.

He had a 4.0 GPA until his senior year of high school.

He got a perfect SAT score in the math portion, 800 out of 800.

He truly was a math genius.

He had a college scholarship.

(anxious music) On November 21st of 2019, the woman in black in our living room at 1:03 a.m. told us, "Mr. and Mrs. Stack, "I'm so sorry to tell you that your son is deceased," so how can that happen?

How can you go from a wonderful, vibrant young man with a full life ahead of him, and he's gone?

And the answer is he got involved with marijuana.

He used marijuana for the first time when he was 14 years old as a freshman in high school.

I know that he used marijuana because he told me, and I do need to tell you that in my brain, I said to myself, "Thank God it's just weed," and I was so wrong, and that is partially why I'm here today.

I said to myself, "Oh, it's just marijuana.

"I used it.

I'm okay, right?

"It didn't bother anybody," but my frame of reference was from the '80s, right?

When I used it, and a lot of our frames of reference are from the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, into the 2000s.

We didn't have the concentrates, the dabs, and I didn't know anything about the dabbing until four years later when we found it in his college dorm.

Dabbing is marijuana culture slang for inhaling the vapors of a concentrated marijuana product.

See in the '80s, right?

We had a little paper, and you had a little flower, and they had seeds in it and stems, and we used to call it ditch weed, right?

And it was very, very weak.

It contained about 2 to 5% THC, and you'd roll it up, and you'd make a joint, and you'd smoke it and pass it around.

That's what I was thinking marijuana is.

Well, then, guess what the botanists did.

They got ahold of it, and they cultivated it so that it would be stronger and stronger and stronger.

You can walk into a dispensary down the street, and you can buy 28%, 30%, 35%.

One botanist is bragging he has created a strain of 40% THC flower.

That's what everyone needs to understand.

There's nothing that's a plant in this material.

It's all manufactured.

It's completely chemical, so they can purify an extracted, concentrated product and turn it into other things, such as vapes, such as oils, such as crystal, and guess what?

These substances can be 99% pure THC.

This is marijuana.

That's crystal.

This is marijuana.

That's butane hash oil.

That is shatter.

That's live sugar.

That's ambrosia.

That's live resin.

That's crumble, and that's wax.

This is marijuana.

When you hear people talking about teens using marijuana, don't think this.

These are chemicals, and they are toxic and very potent and very pure.

It is so easy in Colorado.

Now made harder with 1317 to get a medical marijuana card.

See, all you used to have to do, and this changed as of January 1, was go to your pot shop doc.

Now, you do need to know there are 10,000 doctors in Colorado, and only 300-and-something who are prescribing marijuana products, so it is not most doctors, but there are the ones who all the teens know who they are who you can pay a few hundred dollars to, go to the pot shop doc, say you have a migraine or a backache, get your medical marijuana card without having any records pulled or any history checked.

Now there has to be two doctors.

They have to both agree there's a chronic condition that warrants it.

They have to pull records.

They've lowered how much they can purchase.

We've made it more difficult for 18 to 20-year-olds to get their hands on marijuana, thank goodness.

In 2016, when Johnny first told me he was using, he used marijuana at the party, and I said, "That's the end of that."

It obviously wasn't the end of that.

Now he started driving, and so it was very difficult to kind of keep tabs on him.

This is where we started to see some mood changes.

Now, he never had, and you need to know this.

We do not have psychosis in our family.

We do not have any genetics for psychosis.

Before his senior year, at 17 years old, he became (sighs) just a different person.

My sweet Johnny was just gone.

He was angry.

He was defiant.

He wouldn't go to school.

He wouldn't do his homework.

He wouldn't follow our rules.

He wouldn't do his chores, and he sadly became verbally abusive, and so he became 18 in February of his senior year, so he went and lived in another house, and this is where things just started to really unravel.

He stopped going to school altogether.

This is my 4.0 student.

Got in a lot of legal trouble.

Someone texted a tip on him at school.

Had an MIP, and, you know, it was really weird because he got out of it, and I was like, "Huh, that's kind of weird," and we didn't know that he got a medical marijuana card.

(anxious music) So if you think this is unusual, you need to look at the latest Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment data.

The yellow line is smoking marijuana.

What do you notice about the yellow line?

It's going down.

Everybody goes, "Great.

Oh, that's wonderful.

"Smoking marijuana's going down," but what's going up?

Dabbing, vaping, edibles, other, and those are far, far more potent.

We saw 156% increase in dabbing.

Teens that use marijuana, if they don't use any marijuana, you see very low usage in smoking, in alcohol use, in other drug use.

If they do use marijuana, you see big increases in how much alcohol, binge alcohol, heavy alcohol, cigarette use, other drug use that they do.

In fact, the CDC now tells us marijuana is the number-one gateway drug over alcohol, but the biggest bar here, lifetime marijuana use is the number-one predictor of whether a high school teen will have abused opioids in the past 30 days.

Don't we have an opioid problem going on?

Wasn't marijuana supposed to solve the opioid epidemic?

Don't we have 100,000 overdoses?

And we see correlations like this.

What happened when we legalized marijuana in 2014?

Did it prove to reduce our opioid crisis?

No.

Our drug deaths since marijuana legalization have all gone up.

We've had a 89.9% increase in opioid deaths in Colorado.

Fentanyl, meth, cocaine, (indistinct), every drug death has gone up, and why is that?

Well, because the marijuana industry needs to addict your kids because, remember, addiction is an adolescent-onset disease, and this is an addiction-for-profit industry, and their biggest users are 18 to 24 years old, and the biggest profit are people who use a lot, all right?

So this graph shows us, in Colorado, 4.4% of the marijuana users in Colorado use 26 days or more a month.

4%.

That's it, so wait, if 4% of the users are buying 65% of the product, what does that mean?

We gotta create more of those addicts who are using every day, high-potency, at a very young age.

That is the trifecta of bad news for our teens.

(anxious music) In 2018, Johnny graduated from high school with honors, and it was unbelievable.

He got four D's his senior year, and his GPA was so high that he still graduated with a 3.2 GPA.

He was so proud walking across the stage, and he didn't go to class at all.

He attended Colorado State University on his scholarship.

He was there for two weeks with a roommate who moved from Michigan to Colorado just to use marijuana.

We never gave up on him, never stopped trying to get him to get help, never stopped trying to get him into treatment, trying to get him to quit, and so I was always, we were texters, Johnny and I, and every day we were texting, and I remember him texting me, "I'm really having a hard time making friends, you know?

"I just really don't feel like I'm fitting in," and I said, "You know, honey, that's normal, you know, "You'll make friends.

"It takes time," and he texted back, "Is it normal to feel like killing myself every day?"

And I said, "No, that is not normal," and he said, "I have been dabbing nonstop for two weeks."

I didn't even know what he meant.

This was still how clueless I was about the products.

He had a journal that we didn't know about that we found when he died, and he had written in it just a few days before he died, "I was set up by the mob.

"UNC is secretly a military base."

I mean, obviously, completely delusional.

"The whole world knows about me."

This is psychosis.

This is not bipolar.

This is not schizophrenia.

This is the diagnosis in the doctor's own writing on his chart: THC abuse severe, and he had nothing else in his system.

People go, "Oh, must have gotten a hold of a bad batch of weed."

No, just THC.

It's that toxic.

This was not black market.

This was not something bought on the street.

This is legal THC that he walked into a dispensary legally with his medical marijuana card and purchased himself.

We now know that marijuana causes psychosis, undoubtedly, and it has been proven.

If marijuana were to cause psychosis, an increase in marijuana use, you would expect to see more cases of psychosis, which, if you don't stop using marijuana, and you have an episode, and you keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it, guess what happens?

It can convert into permanent psychosis, which is coined schizophrenia.

That's what a chronic psychosis is.

Denmark just did the research, and it is conclusive.

They, because they're a socialized country, have 7 million people in their country, and it is a closed system, so the researchers there took a look, in 1995, at their entire population of 7 million people before marijuana came on board.

Then they took a look at it after marijuana came on board.

They used to have a 2% incidence of schizophrenia in their population.

In 2010, after marijuana, 8% incidence of schizophrenia, and guess what they did?

They removed people who already had psychosis in their families.

They removed people who were genetically prone to any sort of mental illness.

They took people out of the collection who had depression.

In other words, they removed any possible comorbidity and still came up with 8%, and the scientists state, in July of 2021, that because of marijuana, we have gone from 2% to 8% schizophrenia in our population, and it's probably higher.

There is a proven link.

Sir Robin Murray is on our scientific advisory board.

He is the world's foremost researcher in cannabis science.

He is in London.

He just got quoted saying this in January.

They were reporting on high-strength, what they call skunk.

The highest they have in London is 40%.

They don't even have concentrates there 'cause it's illegal.

He says causes about a third of the psychosis cases he sees at his practice in South London.

Most involve young people, many of whom suffer debilitating paranoia and hallucinations, and he said, quote, "I think we are now 100% sure "that cannabis is one of the causes "of a schizophrenia-like psychosis.

"If we could abolish the consumption of skunk, "we would have 30% less patients in South London, "and we might have a better job "of looking after the patients that we have."

He really made an attempt.

He really did.

He finally realized, in the end, that it was the marijuana.

This was a snap we yet unknown.

Tried to figure out who it was, but at the very bottom, he said, "Being who I am "and not worrying about what other people think of me.

"I don't have anything to prove to people "whose main personality trait is smoking a drug," so he'd already disconnected himself from being a marijuana user, but when you stop taking the antipsychotic, unfortunately, it came rushing back.

Three days before Johnny died, he came over for dinner, as he often did, and he walked in.

I can just, I can picture it so vividly, and he was happy, a little kind of thoughtful, and he said, "Mom, I just, "I want you to know you were right," and I'm like, "What are we talking about?"

I said, "About what?"

He said, "About the marijuana.

"You told me that marijuana would hurt my brain, "and it has ruined my mind and my life, "and I'm sorry, and I love you," and John and I thought he was reconciling, thought he was trying to repair the relationship that had been so broken, and we didn't see it.

We missed it.

Didn't see it as a sign of suicide.

This was on the counter when we got there.

It's not marijuana.

It's CBD It's a CBD distillate.

Hmm, isn't that interesting?

Wait.

I thought CBD isn't harmful.

Do you know if you read the package insert on FDA-approved CBD Sativex for seizures, guess what one of the risk factors is for CBD, raw CBD: suicidality, so maybe he read somewhere that CBD would counter the effects of THC.

I'm not sure, and we'll never know, but isn't that interesting?

NIDA, again, our own drug abuse institute, in June of 2021 studied nearly 300,000 young adults.

This is the statement from our own National Institutes of Health: "Cannabis use was associated with increased risks "of thoughts of suicide, suicide plan, and suicide attempt "regardless of whether someone "was also experiencing depression."

Can it be any more plain?

Why do we continue to march down this road?

And we're not even listening to our own National Institutes of Health, to our own surgeon general, who just came out the other day and said how harmful marijuana is for children.

New Zealand and Australia conducted this longitudinal survey.

It's peer-reviewed in a published journal.

A sevenfold increase in suicidality in adolescents who used marijuana daily before the age of 17.

Another one that came out in "World Psychiatry" in 2014.

700 teens they studied between the ages of 12 and 15.

A 7.5 increase in the risk of suicidality when using marijuana who weren't depressed before, and the scientists state, "Any use of cannabis in the early adolescent period "is a strong independent predictor "of attempted suicide in young adulthood."

Johnny was not depressed.

He even wrote in his journal that he was not depressed, but he was still having those thoughts.

If you look at Colorado, the number-one cause of death in Colorado in our youth ages 10 through 19: suicide.

When you look at why they died by suicide, and you look at their THC levels in the toxicology of their blood after they passed, in marijuana use ages 10 to 19, 51% of them in 2019 had THC in their blood and very low levels of alcohol.

Two years and three months now that he passed, and I am just so passionate about getting this message out because we have to get to parents to teach them about these harms.

We have to get to doctors, to pediatricians, to counselors, to teachers, to the teens themselves, to anybody who has loved ones in their lives.

(poignant music) - On Veterans Day 2022, students from 10 area high schools gave up their vacation day to film, record, and watch video and discuss their concerns about how marijuana affects them and their peers.

- So we just saw a video that talked about some pretty tragic consequences with marijuana use.

What are your initial thoughts after seeing that video?

- I was kind of shocked, like, I think he was 14 when he started, that he was so open about, like, telling his parents that he was doing it 'cause it's like I don't think he knew the long-term effects and, like, how it was gonna affect him, like, in his own health and, like, so he's like, "It's not that big of a deal.

"I can tell my parents "'cause it's not really gonna affect me at all," so it's just, like, shocking.

- He was having thoughts of killing himself, and he asked his mom if that was normal.

There's, like, no way that is normal, and it just shows how strong the psychosis was.

- Even his own parents were so oblivious to the fact that he had been struggling so much.

Like, they thought he was getting better, and then, three days later, he was dead, which is just really sad.

- I knew about anxiety and insomnia, but never, like, psychosis or schizophrenia or, like, how it had the impact on that.

- I had really only started learning about how cannabis has an effect with psychosis when a friend came to me and started telling me that he had started to enter in psychosis because of cannabis and that he had to take, like, a really far step back away from smoking cannabis and because he was starting to get, like, delusional and start seeing things.

- So let's just do a hypothetical.

At your different high schools and middle school in Maine here, how easy, like, if one day you woke up and you were at school, and you're like, "You know what?

"I wanna try this."

Within that school day, how easy do you think it would be to find someone who would be willing to give you some.

- Like, the first hour of school, you could probably get some, like, it's that easy.

- Like, you always hear stories of who deals, who does it, so it's like, "I can just go to them, "and they'll hook me up with something."

- So (indistinct) 'cause I'm in middle school, I don't really see it as much.

I'll hear about kids doing it outside of school and, like, I'll be told about stories about how, like, kids are running from the cops because they have drugs on them, and they don't wanna get caught, and then they just kind of, like, wow kids in my school are really doing that.

- You know, do they talk about if they're using, like, the dab pens or if they're using, like, a bowl or- - Yeah, like, one person I was friends with last year, but I'm not friends with anymore, they were, like, telling me how they were caught by the cops, and, like, they had, like, their friends had dab pens, but they had, like, baggies of weed and stuff and how they said they do whatever they can to get high, and they don't care how they do it.

- And that's eighth grade?

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- It was in seventh grade too when they were- - Yeah, they did drugs in seventh grade.

I was even hearing about sixth graders doing it.

- Really?

Wow, about marijuana?

- The worst part is when you hear about the high schoolers doing it with middle schoolers, and then you just worry that it's gonna, like, keep going down and down, and then middle schoolers are gonna do it with younger middle schoolers, and it's never good to hear about.

- That's (indistinct).

- And then, like, younger kids getting affected by the high potency.

It's like, "Oh my God.

This can get so bad so quick."

- I think it comes down to how accessible it is, and it's, like, crazy to hear that, like, seventh graders are smoking weed, and it's just, like, coming outta how accessible all this is, and it's just crazy.

- How often are you seeing it, like, during school or at school or in the bathrooms?

How often is that?

Is that a daily thing?

Weekly thing?

Every once in a while?

- I feel like I see it a lot in the bathroom.

I honestly kind of avoid the bathroom during school 'cause I don't wanna go in there 'cause it's always, like, the big stall.

There's just a group of people, and it's just like, "I don't wanna go in there, "have to see that and, like, have to confront, "not confront them, but, like, have to just be around it."

- (indistinct) navigate that.

- Yeah.

- There's some, like, awkward feeling of, like, being surrounded by people like that 'cause you don't know what they're thinking and what their, like, judgment is on you, so- - Right, I always feel like they're gonna make fun of me so... - [Student] For, like not doing- - For not doing it, right, and so I almost never go to the bathroom at school because- - [Student] Very uncomfortable situation.

- [Student] Right.

Right.

- Yeah, that happened to me, specifically, one time I, you know, I went to the bathroom, and I saw a group of a bunch of people, and I saw, you know, the smoke in the air, and before you're in that situation, you think that, you know, you'd confront them or, you know, ask them why, but once you get in that situation, it's just awkward, and you don't really know what to do.

You just end up kind of chuckling awkwardly and, you know, walking away.

- A concern of mine would be, you know, when I see my peers doing this and seeing their lack of motivation and then seeing so many people do it and all this lack of motivation, I think it creates a environment where it's really hard to succeed and, like, I don't wanna separate myself from them 'cause they're my friends, but I feel like if I have passions, I don't wanna, like, try something or do something or surround myself with people that have a negative effect on me, and I think that's something hard with seeing my peers.

- It's more of, like, influence in the fear of, like, exclusion, like, I don't wanna be left out.

Like, do you ever, those of you that have, I'm sure you have friends or people, acquaintances that use.

Do you ever have that fear of, like, exclusion, like, I don't wanna do it, but I also don't wanna be left out of the party either.

Do you ever have feelings like that?

- Yeah, I definitely have 'cause I have friends that I've known since, like, I've been really little, and I've been friends with them my whole life, and you really don't want to ruin that friendship over something that you just both don't share, but you know their potential, and you know what they're capable of, and you know they're a lot better than what they're showing, and you just really hate to see that.

- What do you think will happen if the concentrations and the popularity of marijuana of the high concentrations of THC continue to rise and the popularity continues to rise and ages start younger and younger?

- I think it'll just, you know, the way we've been seeing right now with the concentrations getting higher and higher, we're seeing more people get addicted, more people, you know, having health issues, and even, you know, death because of that, it'll just keep increasing exponentially, which, obviously, is not good.

- Unless we do raise awareness for it and, like, show people the long-term effects and how it's affecting everyone, even the people that don't take it.

Like, how it's just affecting everyone around them.

- Okay, so I think it's really bad for mental health because it's, like, it's not solving the original issue.

It's, like, masking it and, like, the original issue can just build up.

You can get angry.

You can get sad.

It just builds up and builds up, builds up, and, like, you just use more and more weed, and then you have to, like, the tolerance builds up, so you need stronger drugs, and it's just, it's not solving the original issue.

- Like, our generation already has, like, a lot of mental health issues and it's, like, doing the drugs, like, people think it's gonna help them and make it better, but it's really, in reality it's making it so much worse.

- The friend that used it, and she told me, she's like, "I've never been that calm."

Like, "My anxiety has been so high recently, "and I just felt so good "in that, like, two hours that I was high," and, like, yeah, you felt good in that two hours, but then you're gonna continue to wanna use it, and you're just never gonna feel normal anymore, and it's just gonna start the dependency.

- I got scared 'cause I'm like, we, probably the same friend, and it's just, like, this is just gonna get so bad because you can tell how much she loves it that the first time she did it, and it's like, "Oh, God."

- What would you suggest to administrators about what could be done?

Or what would you suggest that they could do to maybe help with this issue with marijuana use in schools?

- Like, the health education, like, the curriculum, as we've seen here, has been kind of uneven, so if everyone, you know, knows what they're dealing with, then that would be very helpful because these companies that are selling this are banking on your ignorance.

- I would say definitely show the administration, like, some videos and have people who have firsthand experience with dealing with marijuana definitely to come in and show the administration this so the administration knows firsthand what the kids are going through on a daily basis.

- I would say that a big thing that the school administration can do to help would just be teaching, like, what we're learning here in a, like, a really early stage where it's not, like, your sophomore year of high school 'cause a lot of the time, by the time that, like, you learn about it, people are already exposed, and people are already addicted, so learning about it, even freshman, or even in middle school and because obviously there is abuse in middle school, so just getting that information out and being truly, like, realistic and showing the abuse and what can really happen at a really early age I think would be really beneficial.

- I was recently at a Cub Scout or a scout meeting, I think they call it now.

I think it was recently at a scout meeting, and these were just some young, smart kids asking really good questions, and one of the questions was, "How much drugs can you dab into "before you get addicted to it?"

And I just thought it was a great question because that was their mindset was, "Okay, I can experiment, right?

"You know, my parents probably experimented.

"My grandparents probably experimented.

"I can dab my feet into it a little bit, Chief, right?

"Just a little bit," and I came out of my chair with, and I hated to say this to them.

They were young kids, but they needed the speech.

They needed to know that you can't dab your feet into this stuff.

They're lacing cannabis with fentanyl.

I haven't seen it around here, but I've seen the bulletins on it, and, you know, we had over 700 deaths last year.

We had 10,000 overdoses.

This is the state of Maine.

10,000 overdoses, over 10,000 overdoses, over 700 deaths.

Fentanyl is working its way into every single drug, and you can't dab your feet in it.

You can't experiment with it.

It can grab you.

It can hook you.

It can affect how you think and how you feel, and I can sit here and give you 10 names in this community alone of individuals that we know with inside this agency will never be productive citizens, and it's going to end badly for them.

I don't know what that looks like, but it's going to end badly for them.

- One of our biggest obstacles is the public myth about marijuana, that it is harmless, that it's not addictive, and it's just pot.

It's natural.

It doesn't hurt anybody.

These are the types of myths that we run into.

The problem is that once you allow marijuana into your state like this, it generates income, not so much for the state, but for everybody selling the marijuana, and the legislators then begin to believe that marijuana is helpful, and it's just a plant, and it's natural, and, you know, it's helpful with all these conditions, and that's what's been happening, and it's really scandalous.

Over the years, we've seen that government has not been particularly effective in dealing with the marijuana problem just like the government was not very effective in dealing with tobacco or dealing with opiates, and it was the private bar, the attorneys, the personal injury lawyers, that sued the tobacco companies and sued the opiate companies, and the same thing should be done against the marijuana companies.

Give another example.

New Jersey is revising their marijuana regulations, and they wanna put in a warning that any marijuana product over 40% THC can cause psychosis, so they're saying it's okay to sell it, but you have to warn people, so I asked them the question, "Why are you permitting "the selling of anything that causes psychosis?

"What, you know, what are you thinking about?"

But this is the kind of thinking that happens with this.

I mean, if there's any other drug or environmental toxin or anything that caused psychosis, you wouldn't be selling it.

You wouldn't be making a profit off of it.

You wouldn't be collecting taxes on it to go into the state.

- [Narrator] On January 9th, 2023, Maine's director for the Office of Cannabis Policy was quoted in the "Portland Press Herald."

He stated that regarding marijuana revenue growth in Maine, "It reflects the significant economic impact "that legal cannabis continues to have "in the communities that have opted into the system.

"The system is creating jobs, "helping revitalize communities, "and having a positive economic impact "on businesses that help the industry function.

"More communities are recognizing this potential "and are leaving behind outdated stigma "about this industry."

He made no comments regarding potential health risks.

- We're also looking at lawsuits having to do with damage to children, in particular, birth defects, underweight births.

Any woman that uses marijuana in the first trimester of pregnancy is potentially subjecting the unborn child to low birth weights, cancer, and birth defects.

- What we're seeing, based on a lot of data, the ABCD study, the National Institute of Health, when they follow these babies that were exposed to cannabis, they're showing problems in middle childhood.

You're talking about a 10-year-old person.

They're demonstrating things like psychotic-like experiences even though they may not have used.

- It was research published by the CDC, and they looked at eight states in 2017, and among those eight states, Maine did have the highest prevalence of marijuana use before, during, and after pregnancy among the sample of women who had live births that year.

- I think the industry needs to provide warning labels, particularly in pregnancy, lactation, and breastfeeding with in utero exposures, a risk of mental health and suicidality and cardiac risk.

Based on what I know, my personal feeling is that there are components of the cannabis plant that have medicinal value.

Why dispensary cannabis has gotten a free pass and called medicine is beyond me.

I would support 100% a cannabinoid that is purified, not contaminated, proven to work, and is available in a pharmacy.

I am 100% behind that.

(siren blaring) - [Police Officer] (indistinct) up on 1083, (indistinct) by Willie, Willow.

(car whooshes) How we doing?

- [Driver] Good.

You?

- [Police Officer] Drove a little fast out of that lot, don't you think?

- Yeah, I know.

I know.

- [Police Officer] What's going on?

- [Driver] Little scared.

- Why - That's all.

I don't know.

All right.

Turn around.

- Yep.

- [Police Officer] You're gonna be under arrest for OUI.

- The alcohol was a major problem, but the pot was even more of a problem.

I've had many near-death experiences between my mental health and me in active use.

Leaving a buddy's house.

Blacked out.

Don't even remember even getting in my car.

Driving down back roads going 83 miles an hour.

Don't know what roads I was on.

I wasn't buckled in.

I went off the road, hit a telephone pole, and got back on the road, and kept going, and somehow I found myself at my high school with my car on the sidewalk over the curb in the grass with the door left open and running in park, me on my back like a starfish looking at the sky, not awake.

My buddies are running up to me.

They're slapping my face.

I'm not waking up.

I'm not moving.

I'm not making any noises or anything.

I came home after the police station and just went to bed, like, just thinking, like, "It's whatever," like, "This will go.

"This will go away.

Doesn't matter."

That is when my mother brought up, "You need help," and brought up the fact of, "It's your choice.

"I'm not forcing you to do this, "but we can take you to detox, "and we have found this nice place "in Plymouth, New Hampshire called the Plymouth House, "and they have an open bed for you.

"You can go."

(pulsating music) The most fun I've had since being sober is, honestly, it's so simple that you could laugh at it, but having a conversation with someone, like, I haven't had a conversation with someone in so long 'cause I've either been drunk, high, not paying attention to what they're saying, and I'm just, like, "Yeah, yeah, I agree.

"I don't know what you just said, but yeah, I agree," so just having a conversation with someone that, like, that just, that just makes me so happy 'cause I can physically understand what they're saying.

I'm present for that conversation, and when my friends come to me with a problem, I'm actually paying attention.

I actually understand what they're saying and can help them.

I'm very thankful that I got arrested for the final time, hopefully, it will be, but yeah, I'm very grateful that it happened when it happened because if it didn't happen then, it was gonna happen later down the road, and it would've been way 10 times worse.

(gentle music) ♪ When you don't really know what to do ♪ ♪ And life can get a little ahead of you ♪ ♪ When you really need the break ♪ ♪ That you can't afford to take ♪ ♪ Transport your mind to your happy place ♪ ♪ Transport your mind to your happy place ♪ ♪ Sidewalks intertwine leading me through ♪ ♪ Forever stumbling along ♪ Then I look up and sitting there ♪ ♪ A rising sunlight in the air ♪ And nothing could ever replace ♪ ♪ This place, my happy place ♪ When you don't really know what to do ♪ ♪ And life can et a little ahead of you ♪ ♪ When you really need the break ♪ ♪ That you can't afford to take ♪ ♪ Transport your mind to your happy place ♪ ♪ Transport your mind to your happy place ♪ ♪ On the ocean and in Casco Bay ♪ ♪ The wind whipping in my face ♪ It's a way to remind myself that I'm all right ♪ ♪ And nothing could ever replace ♪ ♪ This place, my happy place ♪ When you don't really know what to do ♪ ♪ And life can get a little ahead of you ♪ ♪ When you really need the break ♪ ♪ That you can't afford to take ♪ ♪ Transport your mind to your happy place ♪ ♪ Transport your mind to your happy place ♪ (gentle music) (water lapping) (gulls squawking) - [Announcer] Special thanks to tonight's sponsor, Portside Realty.