On Route 109 between Millis and Medway, a billboard advertises WeedMaps, an app available for anyone who wants to find reliable sources for marijuana. Marijuana isn’t available for sale yet in Massachusetts (that will come later) but in the aftermath of November 8th’s vote to decriminalize marijuana use, sources are laying the groundwork for sales. And Massachusetts teens are watching.
State law prohibits use of marijuana by those under the age of 21, but an age restriction is not a brick wall. Although there are age restrictions in place on the use of tobacco and alcohol, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports that 7.7% of Massachusetts high schoolers are smoking. The June 2015 Report to Congress on the Prevention and Reduction of Underage Drinking states that 26.2% of Massachusetts teens ages 15 to 17 reported drinking in the last month, with 16% reporting binge-drinking. The numbers are even higher for ages 18 to 20, with 59.6% reporting drinking alcohol and 39.9% binge drinking.
Given those numbers, communities are preparing for teens to be faced with the reality of marijuana usage, and the best places to reach at-risk teens are through the schools and through the police force.
Norfolk Detective and King Philip Middle School Resource Officer Michelle Palladini is the director of the L.E.A.P. Program, an innovative collaboration between law enforcement and the community. “A lot of parents and educators say they’re fighting a losing battle, but we’re not.”
L.E.A.P. stands for Leadership, Empowerment, Awareness, and Protection. “It’s empowering kids to make positive decisions, educating them in the areas of leadership, kindness, gratitude, mindfulness--all these social-emotional learning concepts that police officers don’t necessarily teach because it’s not in our purview.”
Nancy Fischer is the Assistant Principal at KP Middle School, and she has supported Palladini’s work from the very beginning. “You think of the school resource officer as someone with a hammer, but she’s very proactive. The hammer is the preemptory strike.”
The L.E.A.P. program emphasizes forming a “village” of support around each child. This support system would involve not only their parents but also the police and the schools, as well as coaches and mentors.
“Where it’s taken on a life of its own is the concept of building villages,” Palladini explains. "We’re trying to integrate the police with the schools and the parents to really support the child in happiness, health, safety, and resilience. That way the kids are receiving this education on how to be a good person from a lot of different angles.”
Nancy Fischer says the L.E.A.P. program developed organically. “Michelle had come to speak with us about putting this program into a school in some form. We were looking for a health teacher, so the principal said to Detective Palladini, is this something you’d be interested in doing? So while working as a police officer, she got certified as a teacher.”
“I lean on her heavily to investigate the tough stuff,” says Fischer. “You can divide her job here into a number of categories. She doesn’t just meet with the kids in a classroom. She has an office in the library media center and the kids feel very comfortable coming and chatting with her. She educates the parents and holds coffee chats.”
Now that marijuana is prominent in the news, Palladini is developing an information program for parents who are concerned about their own children’s exposure.
“Kids equate legal with safe,” says Palladini. “The challenge that we’re running into with regard to the children is, they say it’s legal and adults use it, so it’s no big deal.”
But it is a big deal. Because the areas of the brain most associated with impulse control are among the last to complete development, teens face their own specific set of pressures and consequences if they use marijuana. In a 2014 study printed in Psychopharmicology, Dr. Staci Gruber demonstrated that brain development is affected by marijuana usage. She concludes, “Marijuana smokers demonstrated higher levels of reported impulsivity relative to control participants,” adding that early use “may have enduring negative effects, particularly on the developing brain.”
“Similar to alcohol, we want to be educating kids that this is a substance that you don’t need in your body,” says Palladini. “Why would somebody try it? Why would they want to alter their mental state?”
Meanwhile, the iTunes store features over 20 marijuana-related apps (in lifestyle and medical) with functions from locating doctors who prescribe medical marijuana to recipes for including marijuana in ordinary food.
In late January, police released a photo of marijuana-laced candy designed to look like Starburst, seized from a student at KP High School. Although this was an isolated incident, parents have reason to be concerned.
Palladini’s training included a session where she saw various foods laced with marijuana. “Pretzels, cookies, gummy bears, even a chocolate bar that had 4 grams of THC. That’s where we’re seeing kids getting sick, and the overdoses.” For adults it may seem funny, but not where kids are concerned. “The issue with these is that they look like candy. We do have to worry that a teenager might leave a gummy bear on the bus, and we don’t want a kindergartener picking it up.”
And even with the best prevention, sometimes a child will make bad decisions and experiment. Detective Palladini says, “Any child that’s already involved needs to have a mental health counselor, someone who’s objective, someone they can confide in, and it’s important that the kids have a nonparent adult they can go to with questions, someone who can mentor them.”
For many kids, that mentor is Palladini herself. Fischer says, “Kids who would suffer in silence have sought her out. A lot of student issues would come to me, but some kids don’t like to be seen in the assistant principal’s office, and they turn to Michelle. She’s got a great head on her shoulders and knows how small issues can seem really big, and the big issues she handles with patience and her expertise as a law enforcement officer.”
To read more about the L.E.A.P. Program, visit www.
leapprogram.net. For more information about marijuana and the developing brain, check out www.apa.org/monitor/2015/11/marijuana-brain.aspx and www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w8n9UOiBxE.
Issue Date:
March, 2017
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