The truth on whether marijuana is a gateway drug, and the age groups who favor legalizing it: Today in Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Will using marijuana lead you to more dangerous drugs?

We’re talking about the research, as well as which age groups of Ohioans support legalizing recreational marijuana, on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, politics editor Rick Rouan and reporter Courtney Astolfi.

You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

Here’s what else we’re asking about today:

We said yesterday we’d try to get this, and Tom Sutton at Baldwin Wallace University provided it. What do the age breakdowns tell us on this week’s poll about how people will vote for Ohio’s legalized marijuana proposal on the ballot?

We’ve been answering as many questions as we can from readers about the marijuana proposal. One that has come in repeatedly is about whether marijuana is a gateway drug to hard stuff. What does reporter Gretchen Kroen tell us?

Is Jim Jordan’s attempt to be speaker of the U.S. House of representatives dead?

One reason many don’t think much of Jordan is because of his work to help Donald Trump reverse the election of Joe Biden. Jordan and Trump spent a lot of time trying to convince America that it’s election system is crooked. One result of that is a distrust of election workers. What is an Ohio legislator doing about that?

The Ohio Turnpike has been working on a new tolling system, which is beyond confusing, as we’ve discussed previously. When does this nightmare officially begin?

Are those ubiquitous white and blue Amazon mailing bags a thing of the past? How is Northeast Ohio playing a big role in Amazon’s move to greener packaging?

We had a high old time earlier this year talking about the companies that use dogs to harass Canada Geese to make them go away. A lot of people get annoyed by the roving gaggles. One Northeast Ohio city is taking the goose issue into more serious territory. Which one, and what is it doing?

Mike DeWine and Jon Husted have had a remarkable run of economic development wins, attracting all sorts of investment to Ohio. The latest boon to the state is a defense motivation hub program in the southern part of the state, but Senator Sherrod Brown says this will be big for Cleveland. How?

Lastly, we’ve all celebrated in recent years about the success of the U.S. women’s soccer team, although not this year. Is Cleveland about to get serious about women’s soccer?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

Lisa (00:36.038)

It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from illegal.com and Wayne Beeler. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Leila Tassi, and Laura Johnston. And we’re talking marijuana today because our audience is asking questions. You said yesterday we tried to get this from Tom Sutton at Baldwin-Miller University, provided it. Lisa, what could you do to break down, tell us, how you’re going to grow higher?

Lisa (01:06.178)

So for the most part, the numbers tell us that as people get older, they’re less likely to support issue two with just a slight blip in the middle. So overall, everybody, all demographics, 57% support issue two. Uh, the highest support for issue two is in the 35 to 49 age group at 73%. Uh, 18 to 34 is 70%.

And then it starts to drop from there. So from 50 to 64 age group, it’s 56%. And those of us who are 65 and older, only 34%. So you see the support varies by generation. Sutton was saying that, you know, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z are more likely to support than boomers.

The 18 to 34 group is more suspicious of alcohol consumption. That’s according to a national Gallup poll survey. And they’re actually more accepting of recreational marijuana use. And Sutton says also they’re more reluctant to restrict what people can do, even if they’re against being legalized. I’m talking about the younger cohort. And they find…

This is just kind of an aside, but interesting, but the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that marijuana use is actually rising in the 19 to 30 and the 35 to 50 age groups. So that might inform the support as well. But we’re going to see here that voter turnout is going to matter for issue two, because as we know,

People over the age of 65 in the midterm election last year, 63.3% turnout among that age group, only 25% in the 18 to 29 group. So those people need to come out and vote.

Lisa (03:04.562)

I don’t know, I’m 66, I’m definitely voting yes, but then Ted Diadon, who’s in the same cohort, he’s 77, I think he’s voting no. So I think the younger side of that age cohort might be more open to.

Lisa (03:24.195)

Hahaha

Lisa (03:36.87)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa (04:04.106)

Yeah, I would have thought those numbers would have been reversed.

Lisa (05:26.61)

And in studies using adolescent rats and mice, early exposure to cannabinoids made the reward centers of the brain less sensitive to dopamine later in life. And in rats that were given THC, it showed stronger responses to other drugs. And that suggests that marijuana could prime the brain and sensitize it for those other drugs. But it turns out that other drugs like alcohol and nicotine also prime the system.

It’s not a unique phenomenon to marijuana. And importantly, most people who use marijuana do not go on to use other drugs. So the conclusion there is that there are a number of social factors that influence a person’s drug use. It’s possible that people who are more vulnerable to drug addiction are just more likely to start out with whatever substances are available to them, marijuana, tobacco, or alcohol. So the evidence is pretty weak that marijuana

to other substances. On the other hand, there are some studies that actually find that the availability of marijuana might ease opioid addiction. That it can relieve drug symptoms and in places where they saw legalized marijuana, they also saw a decrease in the number of opioid-reconciled drugs. But there are other studies, of course, that suggest that marijuana doesn’t help at all with opioid addiction. And the American Society for Addiction Medicine doesn’t recommend medical marijuana for the treatment of opioid use disorder.

Lisa (07:19.794)

You know what? That’s just because it’s not their bad thing. If someone tried to take away their bad thing, their fear, their cigarettes, they freak out. But just because it’s someone else’s thing… ..

Lisa (08:47.91)

that he had four additional votes and he could only lose four Republican votes after the 217 he needed to win. On Tuesday, he had 20 that he needed. On Wednesday, he was up to 22. So, he’s still trying to win college over. He had a story overnight from a subpoenaed or overnight reporter that’s been…

Lisa (10:52.658)

I think we agree. Speaker John Boehner, former speaker, called him, his group, the Freedom Caucus, that he founded, political terrorists in his memoir. And he got a protest vote for the speaker on Wednesday from Pennsylvania Republican Mike Kelly. So I do hope, and I’m calling on all the moderates in Congress, right, to stand up for what’s good for the country. I mean, Jim Jordan had never been about passing things for the good of people. Like, he hasn’t made that a secret.

He says, I’m going to fight the fight for the very, very conservative members of his caucus. And that’s not what we need. Right. This stands for a potential for the caucus. It is Ohio’s shame. I’m going to do something. Thank you.

Lisa (11:44.994)

One reason many people don’t think much of it is because…

Lisa (12:08.412)

They’re trying to protect elections workers from an increasingly polarized and violent society. Senate Bill 173 was introduced by the Republican Teresa Gavarone of Bowling Green and Democrat Bill Demora of Columbus.

This would add elections workers to a list of professions that would be exempt from public records laws. It currently covers first responders, judges, prosecutors, prison guards, and their names don’t appear in property or voting records used to determine somebody’s address. In an internal Senate memo about this legislation, they said that we’ve seen dangers faced by election workers in a polarized society.

Demora says, this is not a partisan bill. It’s meant to protect overworked, underpaid elections workers. And Ohio associations of elections officials, executive director Aaron Ackerman says, he’s very appreciative of these efforts to protect the workers across the state. He says there have been some threats in Ohio, but not nearly as intense in states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But he did say that he hopes the bill has enhanced criminal penalties.

that are currently being proposed on the federal level.

Lisa (13:52.938)

And you know, the Department of Justice has started charging people for this. Apparently at least 12 people in other states have been charged for threatening elections workers. And a survey has found that about 30% of election workers in the country have experienced some form of abuse.

Lisa (17:20.818)

Hahaha

Lisa (18:21.069)

I’m out.

Lisa (18:58.325)

Mm-hmm

Lisa (19:46.53)

City Council members and mentor voted Tuesday to declare the Canada goose a nuisance health risk animal and harboring or feeding Canada geese is now a fourth degree misdemeanor because it went into effect immediately. And that subject to a $250 fine and or up to 30 days in jail for feeding or harboring geese. They say that it’s a, it’s been a pretty big problem, but their biggest problem is that Garfield park where people are feeding them with crack.

just throwing it on the ground. And it gets messy pretty quick, officials say. And apparently one single candidate goose can poop up to 1.5 pounds a day. So yeah, if you’re feeding a lot of geese, that’s a lot of poop. And they also say that feeding geese leads to normalization with humans, encourages geese to overstay when they should be migrating and encourages them to take up residence in Mentor.

So the city’s natural resource division says they’re gonna try lasers and noise makers like bottle rockets to scare them off. As you said, Chris, a lot of companies use dogs. There are geese nuisance abatement companies and they use dogs to scare them off.

Lisa (21:12.686)

Well, when I was a kid in the Shaker Lakes, we used to feed the geese. And as a matter of fact, they had to stop, and this was years ago I’m talking about, they had to stop, you know, because the lake was so small and their poop was filling up the lake and making it foul. But yeah, I used to feed geese, I don’t anymore.

Lisa (21:52.302)

hehe

Lisa (22:03.316)

But it’s interesting that they’re calling it a health risk. And apparently feces from geese can contain salmonella, E. coli, listeria and other bacteria. And interesting, yeah, interesting, Mentor actually has several nuisance animals on their list. It includes feral cats, deer, skunks and raccoons.

Lisa (24:43.397)

They don’t want a new stadium, do they?

Oh

Lisa (27:23.704)

and I think the satisfaction is to have that and I think both of you have done a great job and I’m sorry, always, but it’s just a bit of a common goal, so I close in my content, I close in all my time, and I don’t pop out and I don’t have that on the summer time and I don’t have a layer of it. Exactly, I think both of you are pretty more after this conversation.

Lisa (27:49.934)

You’re right.

Lisa (28:15.995)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa (28:46.098)

Oh God, I love holding a book. What is wrong with you, Layla? Come on!

Lisa (28:54.026)

I’m like Layla. I mean, my condo in Houston and here in my 56th ranch, there’s not a lot of closet space, you know? So I’ve learned to live with just one closet full. I do have like an antique wooden trunk that holds all my sweaters. So I typically don’t open that trunk, you know, until about this time of year. So I’m like Layla, I don’t switch stuff out. I’m a…

Lisa (29:20.918)

It does. It really does. And like you said, you know, I find things that like, oh yeah, I forgot I bought this, you know, so it’s kind of like going shopping again. They say you should always shop in your closet before you go out to the store.

Lisa (29:42.418)

I lived in 800 square feet for 17 years. Yeah, so I mean, I think I could do it. Of course, I’m in just under 1600 feet with a basement now.

Lisa (29:56.402)

No. And here’s the thing, when I moved from Texas to Ohio, I only had to buy a couple of pieces of furniture. All the furniture I crammed into that little condo actually filled out most of my house.

Lisa (30:56.983)

Right.