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

NYT columnist says she was ‘curled up in a hallucinatory state’ for eight hours

Maureen Dowd of The New York Times has attracted attention with her column about eating a marijuana candy bar and remaining in “a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours,” as she began “panting” and becoming “paranoid.” Some commentators are laughing about it. Not so funny are the reports of deaths from ingesting marijuana that Dowd cites in her column about marijuana legalization in Colorado.

“In March,” she noted, “a 19-year-old Wyoming college student jumped off a Denver hotel balcony after eating a pot cookie with 65 milligrams of THC. In April, a Denver man ate pot-infused Karma Kandy and began talking like it was the end of the world, scaring his wife and three kids. Then he retrieved a handgun from a safe and killed his wife while she was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher.”

The Wyoming college student, 19-year-old Levy Thamba Pongi, was an exchange student from Congo. Richard Kirk is the Denver man who killed his wife, Khristine Kirk, with a gunshot to her head.

“Two Denver deaths tied to recreational marijuana use” was the headline over an Associated Press story. It didn’t take long for the claim that marijuana never killed anybody to be debunked.

Regarding her own experience with the drug, Dowd said, “As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.”

I discussed both of the deaths cited in the Dowd column in my May 1^st column, “Colombians Move into Colorado Marijuana Business.” On March 27th, we ran the column, “Media Continue Cover-up of Marijuana-induced Mental Illness.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted 219-189 to block Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) raids on so-called “medical marijuana” businesses. The Marijuana Policy Project reports that U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), its “longtime ally,” led the charge to protect the marijuana businesses in Colorado and other states. It passed mostly with liberal Democratic votes.

“Already in Colorado, there is evidence of Colombian cartel involvement in the legal medical marijuana industry,” notes the group called Smart Approaches to Marijuana, whose co-founder, drug policy expert Kevin A. Sabet, recently authored the book, Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana.

But now that liberal columnist Maureen Dowd has tackled the subject in a serious manner, connecting the dots between marijuana and mental problems, others in the media may follow suit and the rush to legalize the drug may encounter difficulties.

Most of the media reaction to Dowd, at least so far, has been amusement. On the NBC Today Show, the hosts joked and laughed about marijuana’s effects as the words, “All the pot fit to eat,” were featured on the TV screen. It was a play on words from the Times’ slogan, “All the news that’s fit to print.”

Dr. Christine Miller, who has written about the relationship between marijuana and mental illness, says, “What’s so funny about it? She [Dowd] was out of her mind.”

“I was saddened to see Matt Lauer and The Today Show crew make light of Maureen Dowd’s experience, particularly in view of the fact that the symptoms she experienced were not dissimilar to those that prompted the young college student to jump off a Denver hotel balcony after eating a pot-laced brownie,” Miller told AIM. “Matt or his co-hosts really should interview the Congolese family of that student, who must be devastated that their efforts to offer their young man a more promising future were dashed in such a manner. That would be a story worthy of our national attention.”

A powerful new book, A Voice out of Nowhere, takes the controversy to another level and may change some minds about marijuana being a so-called “soft” drug. It tells the true story of Bruce Blackman, a 22-year-old man who murdered six members of his family while under the influence of marijuana. Psychiatrists said Blackman’s marijuana addiction was a contributing factor in his psychotic break from reality and mass murder spree.

The author, Janice Holly Booth, predicts violence will increase as a result of legalization. “Once legally available, the temptation to try it is no longer tempered by concerns about breaking the law,” she says. “I think we’ll see an increase in the number of young people with as-yet undiagnosed mental illness using and abusing marijuana, and—unfortunately—a subsequent rise in violent crimes committed by them.”

Jack Healy, the Rocky Mountain correspondent for The New York Times, wrote a June 1 piece, “After 5 Months of Sales, Colorado Sees the Downside of a Legal High,” that looked at several problems caused by legalization.

But he also reported that violent crime was down. He said, “Marijuana supporters note that violent crimes in Denver—where the bulk of Colorado’s pot retailers are—are down so far this year. The number of robberies from January through April fell by 4.8 percent from the same time in 2013, and assaults were down by 3.7 percent. Over-all, crime in Denver is down by about 10 percent, though it is impossible to say whether changes to marijuana laws played any role in that decline.”

Miller believes the city of Denver is giving out misleading statistics to many news outlets, including the Times. She says there is a discrepancy in the data reported by the city and what is online from the police department.

Miller speculates that the city of Denver “wants to put its best foot forward now that the summer tourist season is just taking off.” Miller, who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, added, “It reminds me of how a certain mayor of Baltimore, Martin O’Malley, restructured the categories for reporting of murder rates here, showing a nice decline after he took office.” O’Malley went on to become governor.

“In fact,” Miller says about Denver, “overall crime has gone up. You will also see that crimes against persons have gone up 26.6 percent (particularly note the disorderly conduct arrests, up 10-fold and trespassing charges up 5-fold!). It is important to keep in mind that legalization of recreational marijuana possession and use was enacted on January 1, 2013, and murder rates jumped 50 percent during the first quarter of that year. Legalization of recreational sales was enacted January 1, 2014. If the murder rate and other violent crimes have fallen in the first quarter of 2014, they were falling from a higher point. Only more time will tell what the real trends will prove to be.”

The drug legalization movement has been mostly funded by “dark money” leftist billionaires such as George Soros. However, the libertarian Cato Institute has emerged as a big part of the campaign.

Jeffrey Miron of the Cato Institute thinks that marijuana is harmless and dismisses Kevin Sabet’s claim that people can become addicted to marijuana bysaying, “…who cares? Addiction is not, per se, a problem for society or an individual; just think about how many people are addicted to caffeine.”

The 2012 annual report of the Cato Institute (page 19) continues to show financial support from the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations, as well as the Marijuana Policy Project, BB&T, Facebook, Google and Whole Foods.

Interestingly, Cato once published a pro-drug legalization report by Glenn Greenwald, the columnist who would later became a mouthpiece for NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Cato has also distributed a podcast with Greenwald about his anti-NSA campaign.

Some of Cato’s more conservative funders may not be aware of how the organization got into bed with the Soros-funded left.

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