ABOVE: From left: Empower Project Coordinator Desta Owens, Empower Student Michelle Esquivel, Empower Project Coordinator Shelly Larsen and Empower Project Bilingual Coordinator Leticia Cordova stand with materials on substance abuse and what parents should know. Information for parents is available for free from Empower.

FAIRMONT – Alongside new messaging from the state regarding cannabis and youth, Empower is doing its part to get information out there on cannabis and its negative effects on youth.

The messaging, available at becannabisaware.org, shares facts and provides guidance on how to say no to cannabis, among other key pieces of information. Empower Project Coordinator Desta Owens said she knew something to this effect would be coming out due to the legislation legalizing cannabis.

“We’ve just been able to look over the website,” she said. “They do have some good information on there, some good resources. We’re just excited that it’s just aligning with prevention work in general, and that they’re putting something out there.”

At Fairmont Schools, Empower Student Michelle Esquivel said the biggest thing she sees is stigma around how prevalent people think cannabis usage is.

“People are thinking that a lot of kids are using it,” she said. “As we’ve seen in our schools, not as many kids are using it as we think. In 2022, we took a survey that says 87 percent of kids are not using those sort of products. It’s really just a big stigma around everybody’s using it, when, in reality, almost no one’s using it.”

Owens said with legalization, they are concerned about normalization of cannabis amongst youth.

“If it’s legal, people begin to think it’s safe,” she said. “They might think, ‘My parents or the adults in the community are using it. Does this mean it’s safe?’ It might trickle into that. But thus far, it’s hard to know if we’re seeing any change in attitudes among students.”

With both fun-centric and more information-based initiatives, Empower has been exploring several avenues to spread information about marijuana and prevention.

“We’ve done a lot of events to just provide safe spaces for students, such as swim nights, bowling nights,” Esquivel said. “We’ve also gone into the elementary school and taught kids about what cannabis can do and what it does to your brain. We’ve done a lot of prevention in the community and trying to show people cannabis isn’t a safe option just because it might be legalized.”

For advocacy, Owens said Empower has gone to city councilors and county commissioners to speak about putting safe distances between potential marijuana retailers and schools, parks and other areas popular with kids.

“We really wanted to stress to our county commissioners and to our city council members that when they’re looking at marijuana and knowing that it is coming to our area, that it’s really important that we also have that public health approach to how we keep our kids safe,” Empower Project Coordinator Shelly Larsen said.

Through these initiatives, Esquivel said she has noticed a big difference on a student level.

“We’ve seen a big decrease in kids,” she said. “Talking about cannabis in general, you can go into the school’s bathrooms without smelling it. It’s a big thing with students not seeing as much and thinking and actually seeing the information get out there, and seeing how it affects you negatively.”

In addition to what Empower is spearheading in schools, they are also putting the power in parents’ hands by providing free handbooks and resource packs in both English and Spanish.

“Get some of those resources to the Latino community as well,” Empower Bilingual Project Coordinator Leticia Cordova said. “With peer to peer, we’ll be having, possibly, some volunteers going in some of our Latino group kids to help with the younger kids at the elementary as well.”

Student members of Empower have talked to elementary students about the dangers of cannabis usage, and Owens said she has seen how the younger students look up to the high schoolers.

At the end of this month will be Red Ribbon Week, a national campaign to help keep kids drug-free. Owens said they have been working with schools across the county to add something to the campaign.

“It promotes good mental health,” she said. “Each school is doing its own spin on it. Some schools might be doing some announcements in the morning. Most of the schools will go into the elementary schools just trying to raise awareness and provide some information to peers.”

Looking forward, Esquivel echoed the point Owens made about stopping cannabis from being normalized among youth.

“I don’t want to see friends I’ve had for years fall into that rabbit hole of ‘Well, cannabis is legalized, so it should be okay for me to use,’” Esquivel said. “I don’t want to see it just impact so many great lives.”

For more information or to request free resources, visit empowermartin.com/.