Local Talk About Question 1

Local people interested in community health are banding together to talk about the state ballot question on medicinal marijuana use.

Question 1 would make Michigan the 13th U.S. state to legalize medically-prescribed marijuana.

Some said they’d seen studies from some of the 12 states where the measure is already in place that youth marijuana use goes down after it’s put into law.

Not everyone agrees, like Jim Harrington of the Marquette County Health Department.

He says he and others know about the health benefit of the idea but have concerns about what it would do to make marijuana, an addictive substance, more easily available to young people.

Harrington is also on his way to a new job in Petoskey, but in his time in the U.P., he says he’s seen positive changes in local youth substance abuse rates that he once thought would be nearly impossible to pull off.

The group also talked about the efforts of C-4, the Marquette County Youth Coalition to Create Change.

It’s a young people’s version of the county Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence Coalition.