How High Ventura County
How High Ventura County is a public health initiative of Ventura County Behavioral Health (VCBH), a department of the Ventura County Health Care Agency in Southern California. As of 2015, it is the largest teen marijuana education platform in California. The effort was launched to educate parents about the harm Marijuana causes to teenage brains. The educational initiative asks parents the simple question: If You Got The Facts Down, Would You Still Let Your Kid Get High? In the wake of shifting and evolving attitudes about Marijuana for adults, this campaign aims to inspire parents to begin an informed dialogue with their teen, in spite of their own personal beliefs for or against Marijuana legalization. The campaign is notably different from the campaigns of the late 1980s and 1990s (D.A.R.E and Just Say No) in that it transparently educates parents about the harm of marijuana and offers no judgment for or against safe and legal use of marijuana by adults. The campaign was unveiled in November 2014 in Southern California, and has been featured on ABC (LA), CBS (LA), NPR, Yahoo News, MSN, the front pages of local county newspapers (Ventura County Star, Thousand Oaks Acorn), and also in Urban Dictionary.
What’s Your HighQ?
Southern California residents are the first in the nation to take "What's Your HighQ?" a ten-question quiz to test your wits on weed. What’s Your HighQ? is the ten-question quiz created by How High Ventura County for parents nationwide to test their knowledge on weed. The quiz is designed to inform parents about the differences between today’s weed and the weed of the 1990s.[10] The quiz educates parents about IQ loss, memory loss, cognition deficits, psychotic episodes, mental health issues and other harmful implications that may arise if one begins smoking weed as a teenager. According to statistics released by National Institute on Drug Abuse, nearly one in five U. S. high school seniors nationwide has smoked weed in the past month and one in six who smoke weed as teens become addicted. The quiz is a tool for health professionals, educators and parents to get informed about the harm marijuana can cause to the still-developing teenage brain, independently of evolving marijuana ordinances as it relates to medical marijuana and legalized use of recreational marijuana.
Marijuana and teenagers
Reports from Harvard, The New England Journal of Medicine, New York Times, USA Today and other media outlets reveal marijuana use as a teenager can lead to IQ loss, cognition defects, memory loss, mental health issues, a decrease in likelihood to graduate high school, and the possibility of addiction. The How High Ventura County educational campaign was unveiled in 2014 to educate California parents in advance of an anticipated statewide 2016 ballot initiative that may expand upon current medical marijuana legislation (California Proposition 215). Kamala Harris, the attorney general for the state of California, proclaimed that there was "a certain inevitability" about marijuana legalization, in the wake of legalization developments from other states, including: Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Ventura County Behavioral Health designed How High Ventura County to proactively educate parents about the harm marijuana can cause to teenage brains.
