Dr. Randall said the new marijuana is worse than the opioid epidemic because of the long-term unpredictable effects. Some synthetic cannabinoids are marketed as safe or legal alternatives to grown marijuana, but they affect the brain and endanger people even more. She notes that marijuana advocates said legalizing recreational marijuana would have positive economic effects, and it’s true that Colorado’s GDP has expanded by 1 percent because of revenue from legal marijuana sales, but that revenue doesn’t begin to pay the bill for the resulting social toll.
Dr. Ken Finn, a pain medicine specialist in Colorado Springs for 24 years who serves on Colorado’s Medical Marijuana Scientific Advisory Council, sees no evidence that marijuana can help scale down someone’s opioid addiction: He says it’s contributing to Colorado’s opioid epidemic, as a “companion drug.”
Ironically, many on the political left who oppose “states rights” conservatives on most issues are adamantly decentralist on marijuana: Although federal marijuana prohibition remains in effect, West Coast states plus Colorado have led the way to states rights on pot, Northeastern states are catching up, and the times are a changin’ elsewhere as well.
Already, though, legalization is not turning out to be the tax bonanza and end of illegality that its promoters advertised. The Merry Jane website headlined one story in August, “Weed Is Legal in California, but the Black Market Is Alive and Well.” That’s because cities are placing high taxes on marijuana, and surveys show that nearly half of pot consumers don’t want to pay more for their marijuana just to be legal.
Legalization is not turning out to be the tax bonanza … that its promoters advertised.
NEVERTHELESS, IF THIS WERE A MOVIE, we’d see the marijuana legalization locomotive racing down the tracks, as some adults stroll across them without looking and some children use the tracks as a hopscotch court. A leaky prohibition of marijuana has lasted for a long time, and probably kept usage below what it would otherwise be, but support for that stand has eroded.
Pollsters this year are announcing that 2 out of 3 Americans favor marijuana legalization, but an Antaeus look shows ground-level complexity. For example, a University of Texas poll this year showed 23 percent of Texans favoring a legalization of pot in any amount, with 16 percent saying possession of any amount of marijuana should be illegal. Three out of 5 Texans were in the middle, with half of them wanting to legalize it only for medical needs and the other half wanting to legalize it only in small amounts.
This is reminiscent of views on alcohol prohibition a century ago. Scientific polling did not exist in 1918, but observers then noticed some Americans wanted a constitutional amendment prohibiting all alcohol use and others wanted no law against consumption. A majority may have been in the middle, favoring a ban on hard liquor that would still allow beer with a 2.75 percent alcohol content and the equivalent in unfortified wine.
That middling majority was surprised when Congress, after voting for the 18th Amendment, prohibited the sale of not only hard liquor but wine and any beer with an alcohol content greater than 0.5 percent. (Today, we call that nonalcoholic beer.) Resentment of total prohibition festered in the 1920s and gained force when the 1930s Depression left millions depressed. When Prohibition adherents still refused to compromise, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th.
Comments
Midwest preacher
Posted: Fri, 10/12/2018 07:03 amPot alters a persons perception. Why is it that those whose perceptions have been so altered now get to claim they are the only ones who can see clearly? When we legalize the low grade pot and tax it what makes us think those who smoke it will pay more for less potent weed. The black market distribution system is already in place and current lax enforcement because public perception is changing will become even more lax. The result will be more powerful pot in more places with less enforcement and few tax dollars to show for it. Also as more and more people become more and more altered where will the clear thinking come from.
TheAbundantLand
Posted: Fri, 10/12/2018 12:21 pmAs a former drug abuser, I disagree that the problem is more potent marijuana. People just end up smoking more if its less potent. We can and should take a stance of prohibition, whether it's popular or not. Even if its legal we need to maintain that in our personal life choices.
The biggest problem with pot is that people feel capable while high. They are more likely to drive high, go to work or school high, make major life decisions high, or even try to do their taxes high (which I've seen a friend attempt). This snowballs into life wreckage.
not silent
Posted: Sat, 10/13/2018 02:33 amSince I come from a family with a lot of addiction-including several people who were specifically addicted to pot-I am leery of making addictive substances easier to obtain. However, since this train seems to have left the station, I have been pushing for proper labelling. I haven't been in a pot dispensary; but, from what I'm reading, pot almost seems to be treated like a health supplement-the labelling is not always consistent, there aren't always warnings or side effects, etc. Also, when people talk about "marijuana" or "medical marijuana," at least in my state, they aren't always making a distinction between CBD, which is the part that doesn't make you high and is legal in all 50 states-and THC, which is the part that makes you high and is illegal on the federal level. Since THC can be in gummies, liquid drops, etc, I guess it's not hard for kids to access these things.
I think that if marijuana is going to be treated as a medical substance, it should be labelled like every other medicine with dosage, side effects, interactions with other medications, etc. If it is going to be a recreational substance, it should be treated like other recreational substances with warnings and age restrictions. Right now most people don't seem to be aware of the very real dangers. As a recovering alcoholic, I do not consider CBD or THC safe options for me; but at least one church friend my age (middle age) who is a cancer survivor uses a very low dose of THC for pain as an alternative to opiods.
AlanE
Posted: Wed, 10/24/2018 12:04 pmIn an nutshell, people are remarkably bad at discerning what is bad for them. Good theology helps us to understand why this is. But, the problems of living in a society where most people are running from Truth with reckless abandon remain.