Written by Walter E. Williams

Ten states and Washington, D.C., have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Twenty-two other states, along with U.S. territories Puerto Rico and Guam, allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. Let’s examine some hidden issues about marijuana use. Before we start, permit me to state my values about medical or recreational use of any drug. We each own ourselves. If we choose to take chances with substances that can ruin our health, lead to death and otherwise destroy our own lives, that’s our right. But we do not have a right to harm others in the process of harming ourselves.

Alex Berenson is a graduate of Yale University, with degrees in history and economics. He delivered a speech last month at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., on the hidden dangers of marijuana use. He told his audience, “Almost everything that you think you know about the health effects of cannabis, almost everything that advocates and the media have told you for a generation, is wrong.”

The active ingredient in marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Marijuana is most commonly prescribed for pain, but it’s rarely tested against other pain relief drugs, such as ibuprofen. Last July, a large four-year study of Australian patients with chronic pain showed that cannabis use was associated with greater pain over time. Marijuana, like alcohol, is too weak as a painkiller for people with terminal cancer. They need opiates. Berenson said, “Even cannabis advocates, like Rob Kampia, who co-founded the Marijuana Policy Project … acknowledge that they have always viewed medical marijuana laws mostly as a way to protect recreational users.”

Marijuana legalization advocates sometimes argue that its use reduces opiate use. That is untrue. Berenson said, “The United States and Canada, which are the countries that have the most opioid use, also have by far the worst problem with … cannabis.” Marijuana carries not only a devastating physical health risk but also mental health dangers. A 2017 National Academy of Medicine study found that “cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk. … Regular cannabis use is likely to increase the risk for developing social anxiety disorder.” Also, a paper in the American Journal of Psychiatry last year showed that people who used cannabis in 2001 were almost three times as likely to use opiates three years later, even after adjusting for other potential risks.

Something else that’s not given much attention is that cannabis today is much more potent than it was in the 1970s, when most marijuana contained less than 2 percent THC. Today marijuana routinely contains 20 to 25 percent THC, as a result of sophisticated farming and cloning techniques. As such, it produces a stronger and quicker high. Berenson said that the difference between yesterday’s marijuana and today’s is like the difference between “near beer and a martini.”

Berenson cited several studies and other findings showing a relationship between marijuana use and violence and crime. According to a 2007 paper in The Medical Journal of Australia on 88 felons who had committed homicide during psychotic episodes, almost two-thirds reported misusing cannabis. A 2012 paper in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence examined a federal survey of more than 9,000 adolescents and found that marijuana use was associated with a doubling of domestic violence. The first four states to legalize marijuana for recreational use were Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon. In 2013, those states combined had about 450 murders and 30,300 aggravated assaults. In 2017, they had almost 620 murders and 38,000 aggravated assaults — an increase of 37 percent for murders and 25 percent for aggravated assaults, far greater than the national increase, even after accounting for differences in population growth.

One of the problems with legalization of marijuana is that it gives social sanction to its use. A preferable strategy would be simple decriminalization, which does not imply social sanction. Moreover, where there is no criminal activity associated with any drug usage, it should be treated as a medical problem, as opposed to a criminal problem.

This article was initially published on Creators.com

Reporter Charlo Greene of the CBS television affiliate in Alaska used an obscenity on the air, announcing she was quitting her job, and revealed that she had been president of the Alaska Cannabis Club even while reporting on it for station KTVA. She then walked off the set.

Greene announced she was going to openly campaign for passage of ballot measure 2, the Alaska Marijuana Legalization initiative, on the November 4, 2014, Election Day ballot.

In a new development, TMZ reports that Greene allegedly smoked so much pot at home that her next-door neighbor’s kid got sick from the fumes. The neighbor complained, was threatened by Greene, and got a restraining order against her.

Whether Green had simply gone nuts on the air, or else was demonstrating the effects of the use of the weed on her own mental faculties, the lesson was clear: the media can’t be trusted to report fairly and honestly on the marijuana issue. We know the media have a liberal bias. But this case caused us to wonder how many “objective” reporters covering the issue are actually secret tokers.

Kristina Woolston, the Vote No on 2 spokesperson, told Accuracy in Media, “We are shocked and disappointed at what has transpired. Our campaign has twice expressed concern to KTVA about Charlo Greene’s coverage. First, we met with the news director and walked him through our issues about her biased coverage of the marijuana initiative. Then Kalie Klaysmat at the Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police sent a strongly worded email to the news director, again expressing concern about Greene’s biased coverage.”

Calvina L. Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, commented, “It is not uncommon to hear such inappropriate language used by the advocates of marijuana legalization.  To have used this type of language while on the air, clearly demonstrates a lack of respect for her employer and for the public. It appears that she has no problem violating the rules in the workplace. I wonder if this problem will be carried over in her management style of her company and result in abuses and violations of Alaska marijuana laws—whatever they will be come November. I hope that the media will shift the attention from her towards covering why this proposal to legalize pot is a very bad idea.”

Having come out of the closet as a pothead, Charlo Greene’s Facebook Page now shows her in a group of marijuana plants. She also changed her profile picture to one showing her lighting up a marijuana cigarette.

As shocking as this case was, less attention has been devoted to the more sensational story of Vladimir Baptiste, a psychotic pot user who drove his truck through the headquarters of WMAR-TV in Towson, Maryland. The Baptiste case demonstrates how marijuana is hardly the benign, or even beneficial, substance depicted by its apologists. He is charged with attempted murder, assault, burglary and malicious destruction of property and theft.

Before he stole a truck and rammed the building, a WMAR reporter said Baptiste had come to the front door screaming that he was God and demanding to be let in.

His mother told WNEW that her son’s behavior began changing when he started smoking marijuana. She said he had been a chronic marijuana user for eight years and needed psychiatric help.

WBAL-TV reported that, in the charging documents, “Baptiste said he was a reincarnation of King Tut and Jesus Christ and lives in a world of multiverses [alternative universes] where bad things happen to people, and they disappear because they are not real. He said the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370 and the kidnapping of the Nigerian school girls were examples of multiverses in that they never actually happened.”

The case is not as unique as you might think. The link between marijuana and mental illness is well-established in medical literature, but has been mostly ignored by the media.

In Florida, meanwhile, a pro-marijuana initiative known as Amendment 2, is backed by famous trial lawyer John Morgan, who was recently caught on camera at a local bar cursing and appearing drunk, while praising “reefer” and urging young people to turn out to pass the ballot measure. The video carries the title, “Unplugged and Uncensored.”

Morgan is the “Yes on 2” campaign chairman. His side calls it the “United for Care” measure, designed to create the impression that it is all being done for sick people who need pot.

In this case, some in the media aren’t buying it. The Tampa Tribune said Morgan’s rant proves that the measure was not intended to help sick people, and noted that the crowd howled at Morgan’s profanity. People could be heard screaming “Smoke weed,” and “Where’s the cocaine?”

Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, was a lawyer at Morgan’s firm. He’s now running for governor as a Democrat.

In response to the antics of Morgan and others, the “Don’t Let Florida Go to Pot coalition” has been formed.

The Charlo Greene case, however, is getting the headlines, and the bizarre incident has backfired on the pro-pot forces treating the former reporter as a heroine.

In this context, the Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police has posted “14 Reasons Against Marijuana Legalization,” including the argument that marijuana contributes to psychosis and schizophrenia, addiction for one out of six kids who ever use it once, and it reduces IQ among those who started smoking before age 18.

The IQ problem was clearly evident in the Charlo Greene fiasco.

Dumbed-down marijuana users have been praising Greene for coming out of the marijuana closet. But a liberal website called the Inquisitr said she is “every bad stereotype of the pot community rolled into one.” It explained, “She starts a cannabis club and campaigns for ‘medical marijuana legalization’ yet she shows in a short 30-second clip that she has no tact, no sense of professionalism and no concern for what her future might hold.”

The column went on, “What is so irksome about Charlo Greene and those like her is this: they hide behind the ‘medical marijuana’ argument when all they really want is to get high.”

Where did this pothead reporter come from? She says she graduated cum laude from the University of Texas. She also worked for WOWK, the CBS affiliate for Charleston-Huntington, West Virginia, and WJHL in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Bert Rudman of KTVA-11 News in Anchorage posted a “Dear Viewers” note after her outburst, saying, “We sincerely apologize for the inappropriate language used by a KTVA reporter during her live presentation on the air tonight. The employee has been terminated.”

Perhaps some drug tests are in order for his employees.

As bizarre as it was, the Greene episode could help derail the George Soros-funded campaign to legalize dope in Alaska.

The pro-pot side in Alaska is represented by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, whose top contributors are the Marijuana Policy Project and the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance.

But the group also has backers with Republican and Democratic credentials.

The spokesman for the pro-marijuana group is Taylor Bickford, who previously worked for the Republican National Committee, and says he got his start in politics interning for Alaska Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski. Bickford is director of Alaska operations for the Seattle-based marketing firm known as Strategies 360.

The group’s senior vice president is Ethan Berkowitz, the 2010 Democratic nominee for governor of Alaska.

Bickford is quoted by the AP as saying, “he hopes Alaska voters look beyond Greene’s salty language” because she has an “important” message about legalizing dope.

At the same time, a relatively new group, Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition, was active at the recent Ron Paul-sponsored Liberty Political Action Conference. The group was founded by Ann and Bob Lee, parents of Richard Lee of “Oaksterdam University” fame. Oaksterdam University in Oakland, California, is also known as “America’s First Cannabis College.” It teaches people how to grow high-quality dope.

Is this America’s future?

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

John Avlon’s dishonest column on the cop-killers in Las Vegas should be studied by journalism students as an example of how to exploit a tragedy for political purposes. It is a shame he gets on CNN as an “analyst,” which gives him undeserved authority and prestige, when he deliberately confuses and misleads people.

In this case, he tried to blame conservatives for the murders of two policemen.

His Daily Beast column carried two titles, one of them being, “The Bonnie and Clyde of Ultra-Right Hate.”

He said Jerad and Amanda Miller killed two metro cops while shouting, “This is a revolution!,” and then they “flung the Tea Party’s favorite coiled snake Gadsden flag and a swastika on the still-warm corpses and then moved to a nearby Walmart to murder a shopper before turning the guns on themselves.”

The reference to the Gadsden flag being “the Tea Party’s favorite” was an obvious effort to link the Tea Party to the murders. The flag dates back to the American Revolution and is used by various groups and people to protest Big Government.

Miller’s notion of “Big Government” was a government that interfered with his marijuana smoking. A simple search of stories about his background revealed a series of confrontations with law enforcement over his drug habits.

Avlon wrote that Miller’s Facebook pages “detail a descent into a murderous rage, railing against a tyrannical government and parroting talking points from fright-wing radio hosts such as Alex Jones and militia movement groups such as the Three Percenters while ‘liking’ the pages of conservative activist groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation to FreedomWorks and the NRA. Miller’s profile picture was a skull wearing an American flag bandana against a backdrop of crossed knives over the word ‘Patriot.’”

Avlon somehow missed the numerous pro-marijuana groups on Miller’s Facebook page, including:

• Marijuana Policy Project
• Drug Policy Alliance
• Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform
• Marijuanna (sic) fans
• Legalize weed, outlaw corporate greed
• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)
• Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Miller was a doper whose “anti-government” philosophy stemmed from his hatred of the police for arresting him for violating the drug laws. You don’t need to be a forensic scientist to figure this case out.

Is there any evidence that Miller was a conservative activist or followed the philosophy of the Heritage Foundation or other conservative groups? Absolutely not. In fact, the Heritage Foundation opposes legalization of marijuana.

“Jerad Miller’s anti-government frenzy was whipped up by the extreme right-wing echo chamber,” Avlon claimed. Then why do the “likes” on his Facebook page include so many pro-marijuana groups? Legal dope has been accepted by some libertarians, most notably at the Cato Institute, but it has been a left-wing cause for decades, mostly funded for the last decade or so by hedge-fund operator George Soros.

Avlon stumbled into the truth, without understanding its significance, when he wrote, “Miller’s anti-government rants ramped up after he served seven days in jail for a pot-related conviction.” But he failed to grasp the significance of this fact, preferring instead to blame conservatives for his violence.

Avlon’s CNN performance was even worse. He said, “the rhetoric he [Miller] is parroting really did echo a lot of what we hear on far right-wing talk radio, things like ‘The Alex Jones Show’…”

Jones is not a right-wing talk-radio host. He is a marijuana enthusiast who promoted a movie called “Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom.” We noted in the past that this combustible combination of drugs and firearms, as preached by Jones, is dangerous for our country.

The liberals would prefer to focus on the guns, not the drugs.

Miller is a classic case of a pothead, possibly with paranoid or psychotic tendencies. In a post on an Alex Jones website, Miller wrote, “I stand at a point in my life where I am on probation for selling marijuana. I take urine screens frequently and I am forced to take drug classes I do not need. Before I got arrested I had 2 jobs and was selling weed to my friends and family on the side. Now I cannot find a job.”

He had only himself to blame.

Miller wrote a post on May 13, 2013, after having to answer for a drug violation.

“Mark one up for freedom today,” he said. “I stood before a fascist judge today and implied that he was a Nazi. I told him I did not recognize his authority over me and reminded him that 2 states now have legalized weed for recreational use. I also informed him that now, since the fast and furious scandal, that continuing the war on drugs is treason. He said to me ‘I may not agree with the law, but it is my duty to enforce it.’ To which I replied ‘Nazis during the war criminal trials stated that they, were just following orders and enforcing the law, and we hung those people.’”

Hence, he was completely in favor of legalizing marijuana and perhaps other drugs. This puts him firmly on the “progressive” side of the political spectrum.

“In 2010 and 2007 he was convicted of drug dealing and possession charges related to marijuana,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal said.

The paper said that Garry Frick, the owner of a bookstore, got caught in a short but dramatic debate with Jerad Miller, in which the pothead “covered everything from Bundy to the Declaration of Independence to the morality of pornography, guns and drugs in a span of less than 15 minutes. He kept misquoting things and incorrectly using words, Frick said, all the while sounding very sure of himself.”

It sounds like marijuana took its psychological toll on him.

Miller was from Lafayette, Indiana. In the local paper, Ron Wilkins & Steven Porter noted that it “appears from Jerad Miller’s rants on Facebook and YouTube, he was angry at the government because of his repeated arrests and convictions for using drugs.” This is precisely the case, based on what we know about him.

They added, “He had a trail of marijuana arrests and convictions in Tippecanoe County [Indiana] stretching back to 2007.”

Miller’s landlord was quoted as saying, “Jerad was nothing but a drug-addict loser.”

KLAS-TV in Las Vegas said his marijuana convictions included:

• Being charged in Anderson, Indiana city court in July 2003 with misdemeanor possession of marijuana/hashish, a charge for which he pleaded guilty that November.

• Miller was charged in Tippecanoe County with misdemeanor criminal recklessness with risk of bodily injury by pointing a firearm, possession of marijuana, hash oil or hashish with a prior conviction, and possession of paraphernalia.

• In December 2010 Miller was charged in Tippecanoe County with felony dealing in and possession of marijuana, hash oil or hashish, and felony possession of a controlled substance.

Avlon mentioned how the political left was once the source of much terrorism, even mentioning the Weather Underground. “In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, the anti-government violence in the United States was primarily on the left with groups like The Weathermen…” he told CNN.

But he failed to connect the dots to cases like that of Miller, falsely labeled a right-winger by Avlon.

It was communist Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn who declared, “We fight in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons. The laws against marijuana mean that millions of us are outlaws long before we actually split. Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.”

This puts Miller’s cry of “revolution” in the necessary context. It’s too bad Avlon doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

When The Baltimore Sun ran an editorial about the Maryland mall shooter, who killed two people and then himself, the newspaper said that mental health problems need to be identified sooner. But it failed to breathe a word about killer Darion Aguilar’s admitted marijuana use. Dr. Christine Miller, a semi-retired molecular neuroscientist living in Maryland, was not too surprised by the omission. She says the liberal media tend to ignore the relationship between marijuana and mental illness.

“I know that the editors are aware of the marijuana-psychosis connection because I have corresponded in the past with one of their journalists who was unable to get them interested in a story on the topic,” she told Accuracy in Media. “They did publish one letter I wrote to their local Towson Times affiliate.”

Miller has researched the cause of schizophrenia for many years, and is working to stave off marijuana legalization in Maryland. “Though none of my work involved the study of marijuana use, I became aware of the growing body of literature showing its association with the onset of schizophrenia, and I now regard those numerous reports as the most well-replicated finding in schizophrenia research,” she says.

In a case in Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized, the national news media recently aired a video of a man stealing an SUV with a 4-year-old boy inside, but did not emphasize his history of drug abuse, including marijuana. The Denver Post reported that a pickup truck he had stolen earlier was found with drug paraphernalia, including empty syringes, five pipes containing residues believed to be of methamphetamine and marijuana, as well as 2.1 grams of pot.

In another sensational case, in Tennessee, a woman who said she smoked marijuana all day and all night drove her car into a church and stabbed her husband. Church Hill Police Department Chief Mark Johnson told The Kingsport Times News that the woman stated that God had told her to stab her husband for “worshipping” NASCAR. The woman said, “I smoke a bunch of weed. I love to smoke it. Sometimes when I do, I start seeing things that others don’t. Isn’t God good? He told me that this would happen, and just look, I am okay.”

In the Washington, D.C. area, The Baltimore Sun isn’t the only paper reluctant to examine the marijuana link to mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and psychosis. After Dr. Miller testified to the Maryland House Judiciary Committee about the marijuana-psychosis connection, she was contacted by Frederick Krunkel of The Washington Post, asking for a phone interview. She said, “I replied, along with my phone number and a time to call, but they never called.”

“It turns out that 15 percent of marijuana users experience psychosis, half of whom will go on to become schizophrenic if they don’t stop using,” she told AIM. “Fortunately, many do stop if they aren’t addicted already, because paranoia is no fun.” She says some people are under the misimpression that if someone is psychotic due to marijuana, it comes from what the marijuana is laced with. “In fact,” she says, “the converse is true—a large study out of Finland last year shows that in acute substance-induced psychosis cases, the cannabis users convert to schizophrenia spectrum disorder at the highest rate.”

Incredibly, however, the Maryland House of Delegates passed Del. Cheryl Glenn and Del. Dan Morhaim’s medical marijuana bill in a 127-9 vote. The dope lobby, known as the Marijuana Policy Project, is saying, “Maryland may finally become the 21st state with an effective medical marijuana law!”

In attempting to explain the media’s failure to cover both sides of this debate, Miller said, “I think we are losing our journalistic standards.” She believes that papers like the Post no longer have the “depth of talent” from reporters who understand how to cover scientific evidence in controversies like this.

Another factor, she said, is that there’s a “giddy rush” by the media to jump on the “progressive bandwagon,” which views the marijuana movement as fashionable. In this regard, she singled out CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who has been promoting “medical marijuana” without taking into account the serious mental health problems associated with its use. She said liberal reporters are also influenced by the perception that too many members of minority groups are being punished for drug use.

Despite the rush to legalize marijuana for various purposes, Miller said the media will eventually be forced to cover the link between marijuana use and mental illness because of the growing number and severity of violent incidents involving schizophrenic individuals using the drug. Those whose schizophrenia manifests in the context of drug use are much more likely to be violent. She also says that in the wake of its legalization in Colorado, data is coming out of that state about impaired driving associated with the increasing use of marijuana.

This article was originally published at the AccuracyinMedia.org blog.

The “sweet” young man who killed two people, and then himself, in a Maryland shopping mall on January 25 was a pothead.

But the police revelation that the killer mentions “using marijuana” in a diary has been played down by the media, which in recent months have seemed almost ecstatic about the legalization of the drug in Colorado. President Obama, a one-time heavy user, recently called the drug safer than alcohol.

The link between marijuana and mental illness, documented in the medical literature, is not a popular subject for journalists who themselves may use pot and be reluctant to tell the truth about high potency marijuana and its powerful, psychoactive component.

Just after the murders, the killer, Darion Aguilar, was described in a Washington Post story as a “good kid” with no criminal record who was perceived as “harmless.” His mother called him a “gentle, sweet kid.”

But now the story has dramatically changed.

“Howard County police said on Twitter that Darion Aguilar wrote of using marijuana, expressed ‘thoughts of wanting to die’ and even said he was ‘ready to die,’” reported The Washington Post. But the marijuana reference was buried in the fifth paragraph, even though it helps explain why a “harmless” young man would turn into a psychotic monster.

The police Twitter account reported that Aguilar, in his writings, “indicates he thought he needed a mental health professional, but never told his family. He also mentions using marijuana.”

In Maryland, where the mall killings took place, the Marijuana Policy Project is pushing legal dope. State Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller has endorsed legalization of marijuana and even remarked about taking a “toke” for a toothache.

Less than a week after Aguilar brought a shotgun into the shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland, state police arrested another doper, George Hong Sik Chin, as he threatened employees at the Tumi luggage store in Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland. “Police searched his truck and found a small amount of marijuana and a pipe, and drug charges were pending,” The Baltimore Sun reported.

Police said he was wearing camouflage, acting disorderly, and threatening to kill employees of the luggage store. Another account said he was “babbling incoherently.”

Nevertheless, the Marijuana Policy Project, which conducts fundraisers at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, posted five billboards surrounding the stadium that hosted the Super Bowl on Sunday, claiming that “marijuana is safer than both alcohol and playing professional football.” This claim echoes statements made by President Barack Obama, a one-time member of the “Choom Gang” in Hawaii, and a heavy user of marijuana.

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), during a January 29 Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the Justice Department, questioned Attorney General Eric Holder about Obama’s recent statement to The New Yorker that marijuana isn’t more dangerous than alcohol:

Sessions: …did the President make or conduct any medical or scientific survey before he waltzed into The New Yorker and opined, contrary to the position of attorney generals and presidents universally prior to that? That marijuana is not as I’ve quoted him? Did he study any of this data before he made that statement?

Holder: Well, I don’t know, but I think, as I said…

Sessions: Did he consult with you before he made that statement?

Holder:  No, we didn’t talk about that.

Sessions: Well, what about this study from the American Medical Association, October of 2013? ‘Heavy (inaudible) use in adolescents causes persistent impairments in neurocognitive performance and I.Q. And use is associated with increased rates of anxiety, mood and psychotic thought disorders,’ close quote. Or this report from Northwestern University in December—last December. Quote: ‘The study found that marijuana users have abnormal brain structure and poor memory, and that chronic marijuana use may lead to brain changes resembling schizophrenia. The study also reported that the younger the person starts using marijuana, the worst the effect.’ Would you dispute those reports?

Holder: I have not read the reports, but I don’t—if they are—if they are, in fact, from the AMA, I’m sure they are good reports. But that is exactly why one of our eight enforcement priorities is the prevention of marijuana to minors.

Sessions: Well, Lady Gaga said she’s addicted to it, and it is not harmless. She’s been addicted to it. Patrick Kennedy—former Congressman Kennedy—said the President is wrong on this subject. I just think it’s a huge issue. I hope that you will talk with the President—you’re close to him—and begin to push back—pull back from this position that I think is going to be adverse to the health of America.

Liberal commentators laughed at Senator Sessions’ reference to Lady Gaga being addicted to marijuana, but in fact she said she was “smoking up to 15-20 marijuana cigarettes a day,” allegedly to deal with various ailments.  She has been a longtime Obama supporter.

This article was originally posted on the Accuracy in Media website.