The use and distribution of marijuana is a divisive issue, and student journalists from across the country spent months reporting on it as part of Carnegie-Knight News21’s project “America’s Weed Rush.”
Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post, moderated a panel discussion Monday night with Jacquee Petchel, executive editor of News21, as they shared conversation with the three reporters: Clarissa Cooper, Sean Logan and Anne Shearer.
The project covered six main beats: politics, medicine, recreation, science, money and law enforcement. It included perspectives from parents of disabled children, dispensary owners, doctors specializing in medical marijuana, police and farmers.
Downie said that the scope of the project was significant.
“Because it’s not legal federally, no research goes on to determine if it’s good or bad for you,” Downie said. “On one side you have people saying this is really terrible—it links to other drugs—but there’s no research to prove that. Then, on the other side people are saying it will cure everything, and there’s no research to support that because the federal government won’t allow it.”
The News21 journalists sought perspectives about the lifestyles of many marijuana users throughout the country by traveling to states such as Hawaii, Alaska and California.
Shearer recalled the story of marijuana-growing Hawaii farmer Michael Russell’s disregard for marijuana laws within the state.
“He had been raided before, and at the time he was suing the Hawaii county police over the fact that they had raided his farm a few years prior to that,” Shearer said. “He was completely open with us; nobody had a problem. He’s confirmed and he still is convinced that everything he was doing was completely legal.”
“We continued to tell the story in chapters from Fresno to Eureka,” Petchel said.
Petchel shared a video from the stories of five cities within California from the News21 website that depicted “The Green Doctor” in Venice Beach, California.
The video demonstrated that the process of applying for and being approved for medical marijuana in California takes approximately a minute and a half.
“Every time a dispensary was shut down it reopened or moved next door,” Petchel said.
Shearer said legalization of marijuana has grown and continues to grow rapidly.
“There are 23 states plus Guam and Washington D.C. that have legalized marijuana in one way or another,” she said.
She explained the process of being provided with medical marijuana: what it takes to get the card, legislative concerns and the use of the drug for issues such as insomnia or anxiety.
“In Maryland you can get medical marijuana with just a doctor’s note. It doesn’t matter what your condition is. Your doctor just has to sign off on it,” Shearer said.
“In the absence of federal regulation, states are given leeway to do whatever they want,” Petchel said.
Another state visited was Alaska, where growers of cannabis received little to no regulation according to the panelists.
“They have very strong feelings about the right to privacy and the government staying out of your business,” Logan said.
He said despite the culture of growing cannabis in Alaska, a market for medical marijuana has not particularly thrived because of restrictions on recreational use.
The reporters said they focused in on telling the story and voices of people who are using medical marijuana in as interesting a way as possible.
“A multimedia project is not just about telling a story, it’s about combining all of the elements we can think of to continue to be interesting,” Downie Jr. said.
Contact the reporter at brianna.bradley@asu.edu.
Editor’s Note: Downtown Devil Executive Editor Jayson Chesler was a 2015 News21 Fellow. He did not contribute to the reporting or editing of this story.
