There is a new poll from one of the politically bluest states in the nation expressing regret for their liberal ways. It didn’t take long.

In 2020 Oregonians voted nearly 60-40 percent to decriminalize drugs, a fairytale notion supported by libertarians and leftists. The results were the exact opposite of what advocates claimed would happen. Social problems, crime, addiction, and homelessness exploded. New tax money from legal drug sales disappeared into the government bureaucracy with no visible benefits to society.

Now, a poll by Portland-based DHM Research finds that support has flipped – 63 percent of Oregonians support reinstating criminal punishments for drug possession.

“Oregon has turned into an international spectacle and I think we looked at each other and realize that we made an enormous mistake,” Portland-based trial attorney Kristin Olson told Fox News.

A majority of every demographic in the poll, including younger Oregon voters ages 18-30, now support reinstatement of criminal penalties for drug possession and use.

“I think we didn’t realize that what we were signing up for was the deterioration of civilized norms and the public spaces being ceded to people in late-stage drug addiction and engaged in all sorts of criminal activity to keep that addiction going,” Olsen said.

An audit also found the state’s health authority could not provide data showing how hundreds of millions of tax dollars earmarked for addiction services through new decriminalization policies were spent.

On another note, Quest Diagnostics recently looked at 10.6 million workplace drug test results and found that positive tests for marijuana following workplace accidents are now at the highest levels in 25 years.  Not surprisingly, states that have legalized medical or recreational use had higher workplace test positivity rates.

There are various situations and circumstances that contribute to the growing problem of homelessness in America. According to Pastor Phil Kwiatkowski, president of Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, the factor that most often leads to homelessness is drug use and addiction.  With this reality in mind, why would anyone think that legalizing recreational marijuana is a good idea?

In this video, Pastor Kwiatkowski relates his experience with the connection between homelessness and drug use, specifically marijuana, through the stories of the teens and adults who have come to Pacific Garden Mission to find help and hope. Despite what legal weed proponents would have you believe, marijuana is addictive and it most certainly is a gateway drug that leads to the use of heroin, cocaine, and other “hard” drugs.

Please take  15 minutes to watch and listen to Pastor Kwiatowki’s concerns about legalizing marijuana in Illinois:

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative to ask them to reject the push for legal marijuana. Respectfully request they do not legalize marijuana in Illinois. Additionally, please call your lawmakers to make sure they know that many people oppose this disastrous policy. The Capitol switchboard number is (217) 782-2000.

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

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

Marijuana – is it a harmless plant, a medically beneficial substance, or a dangerous, destructive drug? Depending on who you ask, the answer will vary widely.

Dr. Karen Randall speaks to this question based on her experience as an ER physician and a resident of Pueblo, Colorado. This community has first-hand knowledge of the devastating effects of legalized marijuana for “medical” and recreational use.

Dr. Randall explains the science that proves the marijuana of today is not the same as the comparatively low-potency pot that baby boomers smoked in the sixties and seventies. She warns about the danger of edibles, the increase in homelessness and chronic absenteeism in schools, and the strain and drain on social service agencies, law enforcement, medical facilities and professionals, and taxpayers. Drawing from her emergency room experience with adolescents, Dr. Randall discusses the alarming trend toward cannabis use disorder, psychotic episodes, and schizophrenia in younger users.

Liberal leaders and legislators don’t want you to hear what Dr. Randall has to say. Unless we want to suffer the same fate as Pueblo and the state of Colorado, we must spread the truth about legalized recreational marijuana. Please share this video with family and friends!

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send a message to your state representative and state senator to urge them to oppose any and all efforts to legalize marijuana. Ask them to oppose SB 7, and tell them you don’t want your more impaired workers on job sites, more impaired drivers on the road, more young people being sucked into a life of addiction and local hospitals having to deal with all of this.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

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.