Pot legalization movement’s big question: What about schoolkids?

Mark Phillips, (right) who has children in the Hayward Unified School District talks about his concerns with the legalizartion of Marijuana with California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsomâ€™s the head of The Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy, during a public forum at the Youth Uprising Center in Oakland, Calif., on Tues. May 19, 2015. less Mark Phillips, (right) who has children in the Hayward Unified School District talks about his concerns with the legalizartion of Marijuana with California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsomâ€™s the head of The Blue ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Pot legalization movement’s big question: What about schoolkids? 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Before marijuana becomes legal for recreational use in California, proponents will need to answer this pressing question: What about the kids?

“We can’t deny the access and ubiquity of this drug,” Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday in Oakland at the second of four statewide public forums of his Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy, a group that will shape a legalization ballot measure likely to come before voters in 2016.

But continuing on the same path of prohibition and “Just Say No” rhetoric is wrong, some commission members say. It simply isn’t working.

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They pointed to surveys showing that 73 percent of California 11th-graders say weed is “fairly” or “very easy” to obtain. While cannabis may be easy to score, the commission found that young Californians “have only limited access to quality drug education, counseling or treatment.”

The California Healthy Kids Survey found that only 2 to 3 percent of the state’s high school students are “regular” weed users (partaking 10 to 19 times a month) and 7 to 8 percent are “heavy” users (consuming cannabis more than 20 days a month.)

But in a report, the commission said that even though “the majority of users never become regular or heavy users ... it is impossible to predict whether these numbers are likely to increase or decrease” if marijuana is legalized.

Commission members suggested using the revenue from taxing weed in part to set up student assistance programs — similar to employee assistance programs — in schools.

“Teenagers don’t need any more messages” like the 1980s’ “Just Say No” campaigns, said longtime drug educator Commissioner Marsha Rosenbaum. “What they need is real education that can actually result in keeping them safe. Imagine if you had a sex education class now that didn’t mention condoms. But that’s what we have now.”

Although Newsom is in favor of legalizing and taxing marijuana, the father of three said that his wife, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, “isn’t so convinced.”

Neither were some among the several dozen in attendance Tuesday at Youth Uprising, a community health, career and arts center in East Oakland.

Several worried about how the unintended consequences of legalization could trickle down to younger kids and perpetuate an illegal pot market in poorer neighborhoods.

Street-level drug dealers who are now selling to 17- to 25-year-olds could see legalization cut their market in half, said Robert Dousa, who helps kids with abuse issues in the Oakland Unified School District. He fears those dealers would then start selling harder drugs — like methamphetamine — to even younger kids.

“Many of these dealers are doing it to support their families — they need to make money,” Dousa said. His idea: Teach drug dealers to use the skills they’re using in the illegal market to become entrepreneurs for legal pursuits.

Others, like Don Carney, who works with restorative justice programs for young people at the Marin YMCA, worried that greater access to marijuana could sap the youths’ ability to generate their own highs — and passions in life.

“I think it is a little Kafkaesque to say that we need to legalize marijuana to generate revenue so we can make kids’ health a priority,” Carney said. “That’s twisted.”

If the issue makes it to the ballot, Bishop Ron Allen, a Sacramento pastor who was at the forefront of the opposition to the state’s 2009 legalization attempt, is ready to go to battle again. Though legalization forces probably will be better funded and better organized, Allen said, 5,100 religious leaders across the state are ready to organize the opposition again.

“We’re not doing a good job with tobacco and kids. We’re not doing a good job with alcohol and kids,” said Allen, who spent seven years addicted to crack cocaine. “It’s ridiculous to think we’re going to do a good job with marijuana. Not for medicine. Just so people can get high.”

Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @joegarofoli