SVG
Commentary
Fox News

Mr. Trump, Please Don't Legalize Marijuana at the Federal Level

New concerns over marijuana addiction

john_walters
john_walters
President and CEO
Host, "The Bill Bennett Interview", former Director of Drug Control Policy for Pres. George HW Bush
(krisanapong detraphiphat)
Caption
(krisanapong detraphiphat)

President Trump has spoken out forcefully about defeating the illegal drug problem—as powerfully as any recent president, including Ronald Reagan. Now he is urged to marijuana legalization in the midst of the most deadly drug abuse epidemic in American history. President Trump should refuse—it’s a bad deal with unsustainable consequences.

Obviously, decriminalizing the sale and possession of marijuana will make the drug more available and increase use.  of decriminalization contend, however, that the harm of more use is less than the harm caused by current law and its enforcement. This is ridiculous.

First and foremost, marijuana is already associated with more abuse and dependency (now called substance abuse disorder) than all other illegal drugs combined. Roughly  of illegal drugs are using marijuana. This is a dangerous blind spot exploited by many legalization advocates (although  of them are now warning about the growing risk of heavy marijuana use under legalization).

If you doubt legalization brings a rapid increase in marijuana use and addiction, consider . This is the test case; the experiment in legalization created by the Obama Administration. Colorado permitted the so-called “medical” sale of marijuana in 2009 and “recreational” sale in 2013. Some seem to believe, falsely, that marijuana use in Colorado has been accompanied by a decline in other drug use. This is emphatically not true. Last year  died from drug overdoses than at any time in the state’s history. The cruel “Colorado experiment” has . Nonetheless, legalizers want to repeat it from sea to shining sea.

Second, marijuana use is not safe. Legalization advocates frequently play on the fact that many Americans have used the drug without recognizable harm as proof that most marijuana use is benign. We are all victims of our experience. The genuine research points to massive ignorance about the known dangers.

As the American Academy of Pediatrics : “The adverse effects of marijuana have been well documented” and include “impaired short-term memory, decreased concentration, attention span, and problem solving” which “interfere[s] with learning.” Researchers have also : “Regular cannabis use in adolescence approximately doubles the risks of early school-leaving and of cognitive impairment and psychoses in adulthood.” And other researchers have  that States that have legalized “medical” marijuana find an association with higher 12th grade drop-out rates and lessened college attainment.

But the most troubling research has : “Persistent adolescent-onset cannabis users” showed “an average 8-point IQ decline from childhood to adulthood.” Marijuana use can permanently lower intelligence and worsen, perhaps cause, serious mental illness. As the Journal of the American Medical Association has : “There is little doubt about the existence of an association between substance use and psychotic illness…studies suggest that the association between cannabis use and later psychosis might be causal, a conclusion supported by studies showing that cannabis use is associated with an earlier age at onset of psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia.”

The science warns that marijuana use makes you less intelligent and can bring on serious mental illness. There is no known, safe level of marijuana use. And the highly  brought to the market in recent years, probably increase all the known harms of marijuana use.

Finally, marijuana is the  to greater drug use and for more and more Americans that means early death. Not all marijuana users turn to opioids, cocaine, meth, and other drugs of abuse, but many of them do and each year, tens of thousands of those who move on to other drugs die of overdoses. Such deaths topped , increasing over 20 percent in one year. Substance abuse is additive, not self-limiting. More marijuana users means more users of other drugs—more addiction and more overdose deaths.

President Trump is being asked to expand vastly the marijuana gateway to addiction and death as , the , and the supply of cocaine is at record . This can only push the historic overdose death rates to staggering new levels.

The President should forcefully reject marijuana legalization. He should direct his staff to get the facts out and push back against the ignorance that risks turning our drug policy into one of the worst self-inflicted wounds in American history.