Pastor Gregory Livingston, interim pastor of New Hope Baptist Church on the west side of Chicago, is bold enough to speak the blunt truth (pun intended) about the “hopped-up super weed” that Governor JB Pritzker and the Democrats in Springfield are eager to legalize – or as Livingston states, “weaponized” against disadvantaged communities.

Please watch and listen as Pastor Livingston shines a light on the Pritzker family’s vested interest in the financial success of high potency pot in Illinois. He also dispels the popular myth that the marijuana industry will provide a means for minorities to become successful marijuana distributors and weed shop owners. As is so often the case, it’s really all about the money, and in this case, BIG money – not in tax revenue, but profits for the oligarchs who already have a seat at the high rollers’ table.

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative to urge them to reject the push for legal marijuana.

Additionally, PLEASE CALL your lawmakers to make sure they know that many people oppose this disastrous policy. Click HERE for their names and phone numbers, which you will find at the end of the state list. Please make the calls!

Watch more:

Please visit IFI YouTube channel and this playlist of 16 videos (and growing) dedicated to the opposition of marijuana legalization.

Read more:

Thinking Biblically About Recreational Marijuana

Medical Doctor from Peoria Opposes Legal Pot

ER Doc Says “Recreational” Pot Has Ruined My Town

IFI Resource Page on Marijuana

Former State Rep. Jeanne Ives Address Marijuana & Illinois’ Economic Crisis (podcast)

More info:

NoWeedIllinois.com

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

Are you aware that legalizing high potency marijuana is one of governor-elect JB Pritzker’s stated top priorities when he is sworn in as governor in January? Are you concerned about your children or grandchildren getting hooked on drugs and the anticipated increase in drugged drivers on our roads?

There is no question about the negative impact legalization of high potency marijuana is having in other states. The social costs are staggering.

Don’t believe Big Marijuana. They have one goal – to make a ton of money.

IFI has been working hard to make people aware of the dangers associated with high-potency marijuana. We have established a dedicated page to help Illinois residents better understand this issue so they will be equipped to speak out before it is too late. We encourage you to visit this page: “Resources on the Truth and Consequences of Marijuana.”

The page is organized by category so readers can easily navigate through the links. Categories cover the general effects on society; the health effects; mental health issues; marijuana-related deaths and suicides; impaired-driving accidents, including fatalities; marijuana’s effects on children, adolescents and schools; marijuana’s effects in the workplace, and marijuana’s effects on law enforcement and the medical community.

Additionally, we want to urge you to look at a series of webinars created by NoWeedIllinois.com, a coalition of organizations that are opposed to the legalization of recreational marijuana. These webinars offer troubling information that may surprise citizens. For example, Dr. Karen Randall is featured in one webinar testifying on how emergency rooms in Pueblo, Colorado have been overwhelmed with marijuana overdoses, hyperemesis (known as “scromiting”), psychosis, polysubstance use/abuse, and acute cardiac issues.

In another webinar, Dr. Ken Finn highlights marijuana’s negative effects on the heart and lungs, the increase in marijuana-related driving fatalities, and the increasing problems associated with youth use. He also dispels the myth that marijuana legalization can help cure our opioid crisis.

Perhaps the most shocking webinar features Dr. Mourad Gabriel who exposes an unfolding environmental disaster as many marijuana growers are poisoning soil and water sources and killing wildlife.

There are additional webinars on the No Weed Illinois YouTube channel and even more information on their Facebook page. We cannot stress enough the importance of learning as much as possible about what may be coming our way in the very near future.

After you watch these videos, please pray that this push for legalization will fail. Immediately thereafter, please ask your state rep and state senator to watch these videos HERE. Then, once they do, ask them to let you know how they will vote on high potency marijuana legalization.

The only way to stop this drug tsunami heading our way is if every person reading this newsletter relentlessly presses both their state rep and state senator to OPPOSE legalization.

We need a deafening hue and cry from citizens across the state to defeat this disastrous legislation.

End-of-Year Challenge

As you may know, thanks to amazingly generous Illinois Family Institute partners, we have an end-of-year matching challenge of $100,000 to help support our ongoing work to educate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your tax-deductible contribution will help us stand strong in 2019!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

Illinois’ senior U.S. Senator, Dick Durbin, recently introduced legislation in Washington, D.C. to crack down on flavored tobacco in e-cigarettes. He believes Big Tobacco is marketing to children with flavors like cake batter, whipped cream and gummy bears. As a mother and grandmother, I applaud his efforts.

But there’s another industry targeting kids right under our adult noses – Big Marijuana. We should be concerned to see how tobacco companies like Philip Morris are investing in marijuana for what some are calling Big Tobacco 2.0. (Read more here.)

Marijuana-infused sweets like gummy bears, jolly ranchers, cotton candy, cookies, ice cream, lollipops and even cereal are attractive to young people. Candy and cookies have names like Twigz, Goober, Dab-A-Honey, Keef Kat, Buddahfinger, Double Pupp Oeo, and Twixed.

Can you believe that one Colorado pot dispensary advertises 20 percent off everything with Student ID? Others use colorful cartoon characters like Fred Flintstone and Cookie Monster. Vape pens are made to look like Hello Kitty and little alien robots.

Tobacco addiction is bad but marijuana addiction is worse. Research confirms that regular use of marijuana has a neurotoxic effect on teenage brains – including permanent brain damage.

Teens are already using because they think marijuana is harmless. After all, it’s “medicine,” isn’t it?

The million dollar question then is – Why would Illinois lawmakers even consider legalizing it for recreational use? The answer is simple. For the tax revenue, in hopes of bailing themselves out of years of irresponsible overspending at the expense of our kids.

With elections coming up, it is vital to know where candidates stand on legalization.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Senator Durbin to encourage him to introduce federal legislation to ban marketing to children using cartoons, candies and kid-friendly flavorings in highly-addictive marijuana products.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

As you know, IFI is very concerned about the move by certain state lawmakers to legalize “recreational” marijuana in Illinois. In 2014, so-called “medical” marijuana became legal in the Land of Lincoln. Over the past four years, state lawmakers and bureaucrats at the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) have dramatically expanded the qualifying medical conditions. Today, anyone determined to use pot can easily apply for and receive a medical cannabis registry identification card.

According to IDPH’s July Update, there are currently over 39,800 qualified users in the state’s “medical” marijuana registry and there are 55 authorized dispensaries statewide.

In July 2016, Illinois state lawmakers passed legislation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana (under 10 grams) to a $100–200 fine. In addition, records are expunged twice a year.

But these actions are evidently not enough for some lawmakers and for pro-marijuana activists like George Soros. It seems that to satisfy these enthusiasts, the floodgates must fly open and the right to pursue addiction, vice and intoxication must be made readily available for anyone over the age of twenty-one. (Yet in Colorado, the evidence suggests that teen use has grown dramatically.)

Proponents will argue that there is big money to be made from taxing “recreational” marijuana. What they won’t tell you is that the tiny tax revenue stream from marijuana sales is dwarfed by the enormous social service costs incurred due to addictions, unemployment, mental illness and homelessness, as well as the increase in highway accidents, emergency room visits, and additional burdens on law enforcement. Then there are the costs to regulate this problematic industry.

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation about today’s high potency marijuana. We cannot emphasis enough how important it is to become fully informed about the consequences of this insidious agenda to legalize pot in our state. While the video below was created by DrugFree Idaho, Inc., the information and revelations therein are germane to any state considering “recreational” use laws.

Please watch this video to learn what the media won’t tell you, and the proponents don’t want you to know:

Chronic State from DrugFree Idaho, Inc. on Vimeo.

It is also important to note that the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes the psychiatric illness now known as Cannabis Use Disorder. Symptoms include:

• disruptions in functioning due to cannabis use,
• development of tolerance and the subsequent need for higher doses,
• cravings for cannabis, and
• development of withdrawal symptoms, such as the inability to sleep, restlessness, nervousness, anger, or depression within a week of ceasing heavy use.

Make no mistake, this reckless public policy will create significant problems for families, businesses, and communities throughout Illinois.  Marijuana use leads to greater cognitive deficits, lower IQs, loss of fine motor skills, immune system suppression, apathy, drowsiness, lack of motivation, sensory distortion, mental illness and anxiety.  Absenteeism and dropping out of school are common behaviors in marijuana users who start at a young age and continue to use regularly. Legalizing “recreational” marijuana will certainly encourage its use and complications.

Socialist George Soros and his drug legalization allies in the Illinois General Assembly are pushing an agenda that would result in more Americans being doped up, dumbed-down, distracted, disabled and dependent on marijuana and big government. If we truly care about our neighbor’s well-being, if we truly care about the next generation, we cannot afford to remain silent on this issue.

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation about today’s high potency marijuana. Overdose rates have increased in states that have legalized such as Colorado, which legalized ‘recreational” marijuana in 2014.  As a result of legalization, they’ve also seen significant increases in youth pot use, homelessness, and workers failing drug tests. That and the alarming number of hospitalizations and even deaths, plus car accident fatalities are on the rise from those driving under the influence of marijuana should give us pause about this policy. But what should cause parents to flood lawmaker’s offices with urgent pleas to oppose legalization is this destructive consequence of marijuana use.

Learn more:

IFI Resource Page on Marijuana

Video Presentation by Colorado Expert Jo McGuire

Illinois Police Chief Issues a Warning on Legalized Marijuana

IFI depends on the support of Christians like you. Donate now

-and, please-

Written by Michael Cook

The most dangerous side of legal pot is Big Marijuana, say foes of the referenda in five American states on election day. To see what’s coming down the pike, consider what happened to Colorado’s ballot initiative 139.

Marijuana is already legal in Colorado. In 2000 voters supported Amendment 20 to the state constitution permitting people to cultivate a few marijuana plants for medicinal use. In 2012, they supported Amendment 64 legalizing private cultivation and retail sales for recreational use.

The results have not been positive.

Although supporters of recreational pot had the gall to argue that legalization would lead to decreased use by teenagers, regular use of marijuana among children between 12 and 17 has been above the national average and is rising faster than the national average.

Nor did legalization reduce black market marijuana activity in Colorado. Last year the state’s Attorney General, Cynthia Coffman, told the media:

“The criminals are still selling on the black market. … We have plenty of cartel activity in Colorado (and) plenty of illegal activity that has not decreased at all.”

Homelessness has surged by 50 percent from the time recreational pot was legalized. Surveys at Denver shelters estimate that about 20 to 30 percent of newcomers
 have moved to Colorado so that they can have easy access to the drug.

Edibles – cookies, lollopops, sodas, cupcakes and the like — now make up at least half of the Colorado marijuana market. They often contain 3 to 20 times the concentration of THC, the main drug in marijuana, which is recommended for intoxication. Unsurprisingly, there have been several deaths related to marijuana edibles since legalization.

So people disturbed by such trends started lobbying for mild restrictions. Ballot initiative 139 would have imposed a few conditions on retail sales such as child-resistant packaging, product health warnings, and keeping THC potency to 16 percent (its natural concentration in cannabis is 0.2 to 0.5 percent).

Big Marijuana fought back.

It sued to keep ballot initiative 139 off the ballot. When it lost that court battle, it paid signature-gathering companies to refuse business from supporters of 139. In a blistering editorial, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Gazette, based in Colorado Springs, declared that “Big Marijuana is officially corrupt”:

When Colorado voters legalized marijuana, they meant well. They wanted a safe trade, regulated like alcohol. They ended up with a system of, by and for Big Marijuana. It is a racket in which the will of voters gets quashed before votes are cast. Any doubt about Big Marijuana’s disregard for Colorado’s desire for good regulation will disappear with a new revelation: the industry bought away the public’s chance to vote.

As the lobby group Smart Approaches to Marijuana says, “This is not about mom-and-pop pot stores; it’s about, in the words of one ‘Ganjapreneur,’ creating ‘the Wal-Mart of Marijuana’.”

The financial potential is enormous. (Even MercatorNet is receiving email invitations to invest in the marijuana industry.) In Colorado alone, legal sales of medical and recreational pot last year amounted to US$996.2 million. This generated $135 million in state taxes, which creates a government interest in keeping the business alive and healthy.

The message from Colorado, then, is clear: don’t legalize pot. Not if you want to keep your kids safe. Not if you want to keep crime down. And not if you want to protect democracy. As Ben Cort, a member of the board of directors of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, told The Gazette:

“The narrative of the marijuana industry has been ‘don’t meddle with our business, because the voters have spoken and the will of the voters is sacred. This is a democracy.’ Then we have a genuine democratic effort to improve recreational marijuana regulation, and the industry shuts down democracy with big money and a bag of dirty tricks.”

Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.   This article was originally posted at Mercatornet.com

TV advertising for marijuana is banned because of Federal regulations. This video ad early went to air last year in Colorado. Produced by Cannabrand, a marijuana marketing company, and Neos, a manufacturer of refined cannabis-infused vaporization pens, the ad focused on lifestyle rather than getting high.