Category: Articles

The Marijuana Report Website

In 2014, National Families in Action created a website called The Marijuana Report.org. The website tracks the science of the harmful effects of marijauna, the potential beneficial effects of some of its components, and the difference between the two.

The website also tracks the marijuana legalization movement.

And it tracks what families and communities are doing to prevent a commercial marijuana industry from targeting underage children, like the tobacco and alcohol industries have done historically.

In addition, the website publishes infographics showing marijuana use as well as illustrating key issues to educate the public. Browsers are encouraged to download NFIA infographics for free to

enhance their educational and prevention work.

Links to the hundreds of parent groups and community coalitions working across the nation to prevent the use of marijuana, alcohol, and nicotine by underage children are also provided on the Links page of the website.

Past issues of The Marijuana Report e-newsletter are also listed on the website as well.

The Marijuana Report Newsletter

The Marijuana Report e-newsletter is a free, weekly publication that is emailed straight to your inbox every Wednesday. It highlights key issues posted to the website the previous week, with an emphasis on newly published scientific studies and the consequences of legalization.

Subscribe

The Marijuana Report Index

The Marijuana Report Index is a searchable document that lists all articles published in The Marijuana Report e-newsletter since July 2014 by date, title, source, category, and link to the issue in which each summary appears. The Index is a living document that is updated weekly as each new issue of The Marijuana Report is published. It is modestly priced to facilitate access to all staff members, boards, or other entities.

What would legalizing marijuana cultivation cost Georgia taxpayers?

This White Paper was written to educate Georgia lawmakers about what cultivating marijuana has cost Colorado. 2019, 26 pages.

FDA-Approved Marijuana Medicines

Many states allow marijuana for medical use. FDA has approved only three marijuana components as safe and effective, compared to hundreds that are neither, but are marketed to the public nonetheless. 2019, 2 pages.

Will Georgia’s Hope Act bring marijuana gummy bears to Georgia?

This publication analyzes Georgia HB 324. It contains several pictures of marijuana products, many targeted to children. 2019, 17 pages.

Our Organization

National Families in Action is a 501-(c)-3 nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonreligious organization founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1977. Our mission is to protect children from addictive drugswith science, not spin. Children are particularly vulnerable to drugs that change the brain, because their brains undergo an intense period of development during adolescence and young adulthood and do not fully mature until they reach their mid-20s.

Our Programs

National Families in Action has pursued its mission in several unique ways. We helped lead the original Parent Movement that reduced illegal drug use among adolescents and young adults by two-thirds between 1979 and 1992. We are helping build the new parent movement, called PM 2.0. We publish The Marijuana Report website and its weekly e-newsletter, The Marijuana Report. Our Science Advisory Board has recorded 25 podcasts titled “What Do I Need to Know about Marijuana?” which are being released weekly throughout the rest of 2019.

We created Inner-City Families in Action and an after-school program, Club HERO, to help inner-city parents protect their children from addictive drugs. With Wake Forest University School of Medicine, we implemented the Addiction Studies Programs for Journalists and for the States. We held a special conference for Colorado and Washington leaders to help them protect children from marijuana. President Jimmy Carter keynoted the conference. We created the Parent Corps in 2003 with a $4.2 million grant to institutionalize the Parent Movement over three years. We have built a drug-information collection that tracks the science of addiction, the drug prevention movement, and the drug legalization movement since the 1960s.

We have published countless reports, newsletters, infographics, podcasts, and other kinds of media, including a nationally syndicated newspaper column through the 1980s, to educate the public about addictive drugs.

Welcome to our website.

Our Privacy Policy

We carefully guard the information you provide when you subscribe to The Marijuana Report e-newsletter, purchase a license to use The Marijuana Report Index, or donate to National Families in Action. We use MailChimp to send you The Marijuana Report. The information you provide when you subscribe goes to our private MailChimp account. We maintain the list of subscribers. If you purchase a license for The Marijuana Report Index or donate to National Families in Action via credit card rather than via a check, your information comes to us through our bank, Truist. We do not sell to others or share with others any information from these lists. When you sign the PM 2.0 Parent Pledge, your information goes to the website called RecLegalParenting.org, whose privacy policy you may wish to consult. Signing the pledge automatically enrolls you as a subscriber to The Marijuana Report e-newsletter.

Bill Carter
Board Chairman

A former business owner and now realtor with Coldwell Banker, Bill also serves as NFIA’s Chief Operating Officer. He and his wife, LaVerne, have two grown children and two grandchildren.

Sue Rusche
President & CEO

Sue serves as NFIA’s President & Chief Executive Officer, as well as Executive Editor and writer of The Marijuana Report e-newsletter. She and her husband, Harry, have two grown children and three grandchildren.

Your donations enable National Families in Action to keep bringing you the latest science about addictive drugs via our Science Advisory Board, The Marijuana Report e-newsletter, The Marijuana Report website, NFIA reports, and other means.

National Families in Action is a 501(c)3 charity. All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Our tax identification number is 58-1363269.

Please click the appropriate button below to begin the secure donation process:

If you would prefer, you may use the following form to donate by mail.

Click here to download our Donation Form. Please fill it out and mail with your check to:

National Families in Action

PO Box 133136
Atlanta GA 30333-3136

Questions? Call us at 404.248.9676.

Drug Abuse Update

From 1982 to 2000, NFIA published a quarterly newsletter called Drug Abuse Update. The newsletter published information about the science of addictive drug effects, treatment, and prevention. It also tracked the early marijuana legalization movement and the national Parent Movement that worked to prevent normalizing the use of a drug that can harm children.

Straight Talk on Drugs

Throughout the 1980s, NFIA’s president and CEO, Sue Rusche, wrote a twice-weekly column that was circulated by King Features to more than 100 newspapers across the nation.

Club HERO Quick Start Kit

Club HERO (Helping Everyone Reach Out) was an after-school program that emphasized academic achievement, student/parent involvement, and community and school bonding. Along with a science-based, drug-education curriculum, this creative program encouraged and rewarded students to stay motivated, achieve personal goals, and remain drug-free. The kit enabled schools to implement the program with a minimum of effort.

False Messengers: How Addictive Drugs Change the Brain

NFIA’s president and CEO, Sue Rusche and NFIA’s then-Science Advisor, David Freidman, wrote this book to educate the public about how the brain works and how addictive drugs change it. Harwood Academic Books. 1999, 234 pages.

A Guide to the Drug Legalization Movement

This book covers the early days of the drug legalization movement from the 1970s to the mid-1990s, when California and Arizona passed the first state laws legalizing marijuana for medical use (Arizona’s law was later overturned by the legislature, giving rise to a years-long battle between advocates who floated ballot initiatives and legislators, who tried but failed to undo them). Little science supports using marijuana medically. On the other hand, some specific marijuana components may be useful medicines.

You Have the Right to Know Series

As part of its work in implementing Inner City Families in Action, and in concert with NFIA’s then-Science Advisor, David Friedman, NFIA developed a series of books, including You Have the Right to Know about Cocaine, You Have the Right to Know about Alcohol, and You Have the Right to Know about Tobacco. These books were aimed at parents. They taught the basics about neurotransmission and how addictive drugs exert their effects on the brain.

You Have the Right to Know about Drugs

The final book in this series was developed for sixth-grade students as part of NFIA’s Club HERO program. It taught children how their brains work and gave them buttons that asked, “Have you hugged your brain today?” An exercise enabled them to dissect a rat brain and provided a second set of buttons that proclaimed, “I dissected a rat brain today!” Once students understand how important their brains are, they then learn how drugs can change their brains’ structure and the way they function.