TO: Mayor and Council Members
Marlene Best, City Manager
Shawn Hagerty, City Attorney
FROM: Annette Ortiz, CMC, City Clerk
DATE: April 13, 2022
SUBJ: Updated Council Meeting Materials – April 13, 2022 NON-AGENDA PUBLIC COMMENT:
The attached correspondence for Non-Agenda Public Comment was received and is provided for your consideration.
From: Rebecca Rapp
To: [email protected]; Dustin Trotter; John Minto; Laura Koval; Ronn Hall; Rob McNelis; Clerk Info Subject: Please include in tonight"s agenda under non-agenda public comment 4-13-22 Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2022 1:04:34 PM
Good evening, Mayor Minto and city council members. I’m writing as I cannot attend in person. My name is Becky Rapp.
I’m a concerned parent and public health educator. I come to acknowledge and publicly thank the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy for coming to the city of San Diego last week speaking directly to teens from Lincoln High school regarding mental health. Murthy recognizes that educating teens on drug
prevention, particularly marijuana is key to improving mental health.
Murthy issued an advisory titled “protecting youth mental health”, After collecting data from national surveys, the results they found are staggering. 1 in 3 high school students and half of the female students reported feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness and more than 6,600 Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 died by suicide in 2020. This is a 57 percent increase from 2018.
Murthy stated that it takes an average of 11 years before a child gets evidence-based treatment after first experiencing systems of depression or anxiety. “That’s not acceptable,” he said. “We’ve got to do better in providing treatment, and we’ve got to do better in terms of investing in prevention.”
Sadly, many of our teens are self-medicating with marijuana to treat their anxiety and depression. This is only exacerbating their situation. Our surgeon general acknowledges that marijuana destroys the developing brain.
Our city can do better in protecting our youth and educating them on the harm of Marijuana use.
Thank you