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Propaganda of the Marijuana Lobby: A Con Job
We’re all being conned. As legalization of marijuana is being pushed forward in the US, we are discovering how little we really know about the drug, and the information we do have is not widely publicized:
Despite being a substance that targets the brain, if and how long-term cannabis use alters brain structure and function remain unknown. There are some known adverse effects. It acutely impairs mental functions and may exacerbate depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and use of other substances. Whether it is more harmful than substances such as alcohol or nicotine is still undetermined. On the plus side, there is conclusive evidence that cannabis provides relief from symptoms related to chemotherapy and multiple sclerosis. Other potential benefits remain unknown.
Ten states have already allowed the recreational use of cannabis. According to an op-ed piece by Alex Berenson, the pro-marijuana groups have changed the discussion by talking about medical marijuana and the relief it can provide, rather than focusing on its recreational use.
Studies that are not widely publicized explain that the effects on children and teenagers can be long-term:
When marijuana users begin using as teenagers, the drug may reduce attention, memory, and learning functions and affect how the brain builds connections between the areas necessary for these functions. Marijuana’s effects on these abilities may last a long time or even be permanent.
Developing brains, like those in babies, children, and teenagers are especially susceptible to the hurtful effects of marijuana. Although scientists are still learning about these effects of marijuana on the developing brain, studies show that marijuana use by mothers during pregnancy may be linked to problems with attention, memory, problem-solving skills, and behavior problems in their children.
Following the states that have legalized marijuana to date, casual use doesn’t seem to have increased substantially. But for people who are heavy users, the increase in use is alarming:
…the number of Americans who use cannabis heavily is soaring. In 2006, about 3 million Americans reported using the drug at least 300 times a year, the standard for daily use. By 2017, that number had increased to 8 million—approaching the 12 million Americans who drank every day. Put another way, only one in 15 drinkers consumed alcohol daily; about one in five marijuana users used cannabis that often.
The potency of the drug has also increased. Rather than the 2% THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) of the 1970s, marijuana is routinely 20-25%.
Even more alarming than this data is the lack of information on the link between mental illness, violence, and the use of marijuana:
In 2017, 7.5% of young adults met the criteria for serious mental illness, double the rate in 2008.
None of these studies prove that rising cannabis use has caused population-wide increases in psychosis or other mental illness, although they do offer suggestive evidence of a link. What is clear is that, in individual cases, marijuana can cause psychosis, and psychosis is a high risk factor for violence. What’s more, much of that violence occurs when psychotic people are using drugs. As long as people with schizophrenia are avoiding recreational drugs, they are only moderately more likely to become violent than healthy people. But when they use drugs, their risk of violence skyrockets. The drug they are most likely to use is cannabis.
According to the National Academies of Sciences, US scientists can only receive access to “research-graded” cannabis, so they don’t conduct studies on the marijuana that is actually being used recreationally by the public.
Needless to say, the marijuana lobby is not interested in funding or encouraging research on their product. Due to the lack of research, we have no credible assessment of the damage that is being done to our children. The relationships between mental illness, psychosis, and violence are still unclear. And no one really knows the effect on crime statistics.
If you think the opioid crisis was a tragedy, just wait and see the results of widespread marijuana legalization.
Are you as concerned as I am?
Published in Culture
Okay.
What rules are you proposing to use against me?
I said nothing about suspending, or going outside of, the political process.
I haven’t subscribed to a “formula” or anti-formula theory of politics. Maybe you and/or Manny should author a post explaining this idea of a formula.
Who is this guy that has veto power? Me? Fred?
I haven’t endorsed open borders, and I have always opposed the legal recognition of homosexual relationships. I believe in the Biblical teaching of life-long marriage (the real, boy/girl kind), and I’m a teetotaller. No drugs; no alcohol.
FWIW, I don’t think the concept of rights allows for one right to conflict with another right. The idea of balancing one right with another has become the West’s default method of denying rights. Gun right violations are a good example of this.
If you’d like to respond to some of the things I have actually said, please do.
Though I am opposed to drug abuse, I cannot find grounds to use the force of law to stop someone else from doing it.
I don’t know what this means.
Your cohort sure is. Talk with him.
Fred’s the one wanting a Formula
Any person who moves into the community and does not want to abide by its norms. Say a community, as a group, 100% votes to have homes in a certain style. Then, one guy moves in to that community and tears his house down and puts a giant pink dog there. Fred is for that and the only remedy he has is for everyone else to move away. He had argued that in the past. *That* is a form of tyranny as sure as anything else.
Libertarians are for open borders. Ask Fred. He is.
Rights can easily come into conflict. For example: The right of an unborn child is no match, in America, for the rights of the mother to kill it. Her rights over reproduction are absolute. The father has no rights at all.
If you want to place the use of pot as a “right” then you are looking to put it outside the political process, even if you deny that is what you want to do.
But, your fellow citizens have. You disagree. That gets worked out in the political process.
Do you understand the difference between the rights that a person has, versus the rights that the government recognizes? For example, you have a right to speak freely. That is a moral claim, saying that it would be wrong for the government to censor you. If the government censors you, that means your right to speak is not recognized, or not upheld. But you still have the right.
The legislative process is (or should be) the way we ensure that our rights are recognized.
Even with free speech, the People, through the political process have placed limits around that right in order to protect others and maintain society. Slander, while free speech, is something for which one can face penalties. That is a limit on speech.
See the passage I quoted just above. I don’t know what rules I’ve laid down that you’re using against me.
If you wish to argue with @fredcole, please respond to his posts, rather than mine. We’re not in a “cohort,” and he doesn’t speak for me, or I for him. It appears we agree on a couple of things, but I’ve agreed with you before, so what does that prove?
FWIW, I do believe in federalism and subsidiarity, so please do not worry that I’ll build a giant, pink dog in your neighborhood.
That militates against your idea that any claim of rights goes outside the political process. I’m not sure why you’re saying slander is free speech.
So if they’re not listed, how do we know they are rights? Which rights are not listed that are rights? Abortion?
Whoa. That’s pretty Libertarian Josh. There’s not an once of conservatism in that.
Sure, legislators do have the power to ensure our liberties, and that is proper, but that is not the limit on their authority. They also have the authority to limit or deny liberties. As they manifestly have done so with drugs.
I totally don’t understand what you mean.
I have a God given right to free speech. If I use that right to harm others, then I can get punished per the system set up by the political process.
That does not seem to “militate” to me.
When I use the word “rights,” I tend to follow the usage of the Declaration, in which our rights are God-given, rather than being that which government permits us to actually do. Through the political process, we try to form a government that fully recognizes the rights of all. The reality doesn’t match the ideal.
In that view, the child has a right to life. The mother has the right to control her own body, so long as she doesn’t violate the child’s right to life, and the father (and mother) have the duty to care for the child. No one’s rights “conflict” with the child’s rights. They simply go as far as they go, and no farther. As we know, of course, the current legal reality is that the mother’s rights “conflict” the child right into the grave, rights and all.
To put it another way, if our rights are “conflicting” then one of us is imagining rights we don’t (or shouldn’t) really have.
It has taken me a little bit, but I finally figured out what you mean by “outside the political process.” You mean, apparently, in the courts. From what I’ve seen, the freedom to use drugs the government does not like is being established more by state-level legislation, and the recent, national Right-To-Try legislation, than by the courts. Then again, it’s not an issue I follow, so I could be wrong.
The ninth article of the Bill of Rights:
The idea that we have only the rights listed by a legal document is not quite the same as saying that our rights come from the government, but it’s uncomfortably close.
We have to use our own best judgment to determine the full rights of everyone in society, and we must then persuade others to agree with us, to secure those rights in law.
You’re saying there’s no place in conservatism for the notion that we must justify government intrusion into private decisions? That you have to show how my actions hurt you, before you can get government to take action against me?
How about the idea that legislation, at least at the national level, ought to be authorized by some specific article of the Constitution? Is that no part of conservatism?
When those government intrusions have deleterious social consequences – such as the legalization of heroin – then the answer is no. Conservatism does not support such a legal right.
Yes, federal legislation is authorized by Article 1 of the US Constitution. Each state has some sort of statewide authority for their legislators.
You’re saying if the laws against heroin were repealed, that would be a government intrusion?
Are you saying that conservatism is a blanket endorsement of any government action, so long as it addresses a deleterious social consequence? Is there any deleterious social consequence that you trust the private sector to address on its own?
Can you please quote the passage of the U.S. Constitution that mentions drugs, or food?
Again, you’re falling into the Fred Cole fallacy of insisting on a formula. Wisdom determines what the legal status of substances should be. I envision many harmful substances to be legal and many to be illegal. Some sort of formal or informal trade study should be performed.
So our country has been violating the constitution over drug laws for 100 years? You mean it does not have the authority to prohibit heroin? You can read about the various legislation over the years here.
I guess we have to disagree. Rights can come into conflict. If a woman’s right to control her body extends to killing a child, then the right’s of the child are infringed. If the woman has a right to take the baby away from the father, the father’s rights are infringed.
My right to do with my land what I want is limited by the right of the guy next door not to live next to a strip club. So, sometimes, rights are in conflict. You may not see it that way, but it is quite clear to me.
Yes, of course I mean the courts, but I mean more than that. I mean making something forbidden to even be talked about in political terms. The goal of calling abortion a right is not just to win in the courts, but to call anyone who is pro-life a monster who wants to enslave women. The Courts are a governmental means, yes, but the idea is to change culture by force to make even the idea beyond the pale.
Gee, thanks for the update.
There is much here to correct. If exercising your rights harms others (violates their rights), that is a strong signal that you are not actually exercising your rights. Again, we see the problem with the idea of “conflicting rights.” In truth, you either have a right to a thing, or you do not. The very nature of rights is that they are inalienable, meaning they must not be taken away from you.
When we start talking about rights conflicting with one another, we’re saying that the thing which must not be taken away must be taken away (“must,” because it infringes on someone else’s rights). It makes no sense, and it destroys the whole idea of rights.
Free speech, by definition, is that which must not be punished by a political process. I use the word “must,” because I’m talking about moral claims here. Obviously, the political process is sometimes abused, but I’m talking about what it ought and ought not to do.
You haven’t answered that first question about how lack of regulation is an intrusion, and you’re just using “formula” as a lazy way of dismissing any attempt at a conversation. And you’re again using “wisdom” as an escape hatch. You don’t need a real argument. You can just say, “but wisdom agrees with me!”
That would surprise you?
I see you that can’t cite a Constitutional authorization for drug prohibition.
I see that you’re unfamiliar with the notion that our government has only the powers delegated to it by the Constitution.
I see that you’re unfamiliar with the tenth article of that Bill of Rights thing you seemed so in favor of.
One can describe a lack of beliefs in trade offs and the problems with absolutism as having principles, and there have been self described conservatives who have done so. Nonetheless, Utopianism and the belief in free lunches is antithetical to conservatism to a degree that almost nothing else is. Perhaps a lack of commitment to opposition to evil empires, but that is ultimately a closely related thing.
Yeah.
Basically, there is no right to violate the rights of another, except in extreme circumstances. (Killing a person to keep them from killing you, for example.)
I hasten to note that free lunches are also antithetical libertarianism. The first symbol of the Libertarian Party, adopted in 1972, was the “Libersign”
And I need to correct you, James.
Your comments apply only to pre-2016 conservatism. Conservatives don’t believe that anymore.
So all these drug laws are unconstitutional? Take it up with SCOTUS. Frankly you don’t have a leg to stand on.
I never said lack of regulation is an intrusion. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m advocating government intrusion when societal concerns warrant it. And formula is not a lazy anything. Formula is what you Libertarians use and it’s dumb. Careful consideration of the situation is what is warranted, and that is how humanity actually works, and what the constitution calls for.
So how come there are federal drug laws? Obviously you’re missing something. Read up on how Article 1 is interpreted and applied. I’m neither a lawyer nor do I have the time to keep pursuing this. Federal laws exist to prohibit drugs and they are constitutional. Face it.
I was speaking in general about rights. Not just what you think the Constitution recognizes.
Fortunately, the busybody nannystate consensus is finally breaking down. And those federal laws that are use to control people are in their way out.
Federal pot prohibition will be gone in 10 years.