The Empire State is now in the enterprise of spending your cash to promote weed to teenagers.

For proof, look no further than the Office of Cannabis Management’s new marketing campaign, “Cannabis Honestly.”

The OCM runs New York’s authorized marijuana program, and this newest initiative went reside in July.

One of its adverts, which I noticed on the R prepare this week, exhibits a dreamy-eyed teenager (or a mannequin who appears like one) staring at her cellphone, alongside with the useful tagline MIXING WEED AND ALCOHOL IS RISKIER.

It may as properly be: STICK TO WEED, KID, AND YOU’LL BE FINE.

Marijuana promoting aimed at anyone under 21 is unlawful under state regulation; such adverts are particularly banned from public transit.

OCM positive seems like it’s breaking the regulation.

An eagle-eyed X consumer noticed an even worse subway advert on Tuesday, that includes a picture of another teen and his obvious mother.

This one proclaims CANNABIS IS LEGAL FOR ADULTS 21+ IN NEW YORK STATE.

The inherent takeaway: You can’t purchase it yourself yet, so get your dad and mom to cop some bitter for you at the dispensary.   

Imagine the state Liquor Authority working a related advert for vodka — or the Department of Taxation and Finance, which handles cigarette excises, doing one for Kools.

Remember: These are taxpayer-funded adverts from a state company, normalizing weed use for literal children.

But the “Cannabis Honestly” web site, the focus of the marketing campaign, makes the adverts themselves look nearly benign.

The part of the website aimed at dad and mom incorporates such howlers as: “Store cannabis like you would other medications.”

Yikes.

Raw marijuana is not and can never be a drugs, no matter how many states declare it one by political fiat.

It has no accepted medical use; it can’t be prescribed.

Study after research exhibits that it fails to deal with the situations medical doctors “recommend” it for. 

As main marijuana coverage knowledgeable Kevin Sabet lately famous in STAT News, an April systematic evaluate in The Lancet Psychiatry discovered “no evidence any form of cannabis is effective in treating anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.”

In November, the Journal of the American Medical Association discovered that “evidence from randomized clinical trials does not support the use of cannabis or cannabinoids for most conditions for which it is promoted.”

Yet OCM’s official messaging slyly frames it as a “medication” like any other.

The website advises dad and mom to do “risk reduction coaching” with traces like, “I’d like to start with understanding what you enjoy about using weed.”

And “Avoid mixing with alcohol.”

And “Be aware of potency — stronger products increase risk.”

Huh? Such feedback flash a clear inexperienced mild for teen drug use — growing the threat that they’ll go proper forward.

For children, it’s the same mushy cleaning soap.

“Weed can change how you think and feel in the moment,” the web site explains soothingly.

“It can make you feel anxious, panicked, or paranoid. It can even make anxiety or depression feel worse.”

This gentle-parent pablum is how New York state speaks about a drug linked to a more than double threat of later-in-life psychotic issues following adolescent use, per a large JAMA Health Forum research from February.

A drug linked to a related threat for bipolar issues and elevated dangers for melancholy and anxiousness, according to that same research.

A drug that a long time of Danish knowledge present may drive as much as 20% of psychosis among younger males.

The state’s web site also — and insanely — advises “waiting to use cannabis” as one method teenagers could mediate the hazard (though it does concede that “avoiding higher-THC products” altogether might be a good concept). 

It’s primarily saying: “Just tough it out till you’re 21, junior, then you’re golden!”

Sure, the website mentions in passing dangers like psychosis, melancholy and even hashish hyperemesis syndrome — uncontrollable vomiting precipitated by weed use that can require hospitalization.

But contemplate the vivid little disclaimer it affords about CHS in daring: “Not everyone who uses cannabis regularly will develop” the situation.

So go forward and roll the cube.

The website’s pro-drug content material goes on and on.

But the worst failure of “Cannabis Honestly” may be that it makes no actual effort to current — or even meaningfully acknowledge — the mountains of exhausting knowledge displaying particularly how weed destroys bodily and psychological well being.

Drug-abuse prevention completely wants to begin with children.

An efficient marketing campaign, however, requires messaging that communicates urgency with out making teenagers too ashamed to attain out — not a mushy focus on the dangers and an implication that the drug can one way or the other ever be secure to use.

“Cannabis Honestly” is anything but.

Instead, it’s little more than a taxpayer-funded advert for company marijuana.

Sam Munson’s most current novel is “The Sofa” (2025).