Colorado’s wholesome image of fresh air and exercise, hiking and beautiful scenery gave way again this April to a haze of pot smoke while police largely ignored enforcement of the “no public consumption provisions” of the amendment that legalized marijuana in the state.
Meanwhile, a backlash from local and national groups makes headlines as they give Colorado poor marks in first annual 4-20 Report Card.
Continue reading Pro Marijuana Events Face Backlash Amid Poor Legalization Report Card
Is marijuana addictive? Yes. Period.
And the marijuana industry, like the tobacco industry, is counting on it.
Organizations like Marijuana Anonymous are founded for a reason.
They are founded to address a need. The need is coping with and recovering from marijuana addiction, also referred to as marijuana dependence syndrome.
Fueled by an aggressive profit motive backed by billionaires, and with the goal of creating and profiting from the next big addiction-based industry, marijuana addiction as a substance use disorder is rapidly growing. Continue reading Am I a Marijuana Addict? Weed, Addiction & Legalization
The left is finally turning against Big Pot. We’ve been waiting. Patrick Kennedy’s message (Project SAM‘s message) is finally gaining traction.
Marijuana legalization means commercialization, which means more potent pot, more pro-pot marketing, more youth exposures, more public health fallout, and yet another vice-based industry preying on vulnerable populations.
80% of their profit comes from the 20% of their customers who are chronic users. And the youth market is the target market for building a life-long customer base.
See the video and read the interview with a thoughtful young man coming of age as a new father, and coming to terms with his own father’s legacy as a major drug dealer.
“To open Pandora’s box” means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences. [1]
The recent death of a student who jumped to his death in Colorado after ingesting a marijuana cookie is waking many up to what is really being unleashed in the misguided pursuit of marijuana legalization.
In her article in the LA Times, Jenny Deam sees a precautionary tale in the recent death last week of a student who jumped of a balcony after the effects of eating a marijuana cookie kicked in.
Many of her statements reflect the narrative of those who are looking beyond civil liberties, beyond nostalgia, beyond the false dichotomies of justifying another addiction-based vice industry with the evils of two others — tobacco and alcohol — to the downstream realities of legalized marijuana.
“The case has become a grim exhibit in a growing case file as Colorado health officials wonder whether, in the rapid rollout of legalized marijuana, adequate attention was paid to potential health risks of its use”
Continue reading Public Health and Pot’s Pandora’s Box — Death Raises Questions
In addition to his legitimate and well-earned bone fides as a senior writer for NBC News and Newsweek and The Daily Beast before that, Tony Dokoupil comes at the marijuana legalization issue from an interesting perspective. As the son of a notorious marijuana dealer and folk hero, Dokoupil is quoted from his memoir The Last Pirate–A Father, His Son and the Golden Age of Marijuana as saying, “My father went to jail for dealing weed and, to my surprise, I would keep him there.”
“If we really mean to sell marijuana like alcohol, then we mean to create a market where most of the revenue comes from people who have a problem.
That is the business model of alcohol. Eighty percent of the revenues comes from a tiny sliver of the users. It’s not the guy who has a drink after work. It’s the guy who has six and misses his kid’s bedtime, his marriage is in shambles. That’s the kind of guy who supports the industry.”
Continue reading Video: Tony Dokoupil on The Coming Marijuana Backlash
In a most eloquent, most thorough, most thoughtful consideration of the issue, David Frum provides the case against marijuana legalization.
“Today, the experiment of state-by-state marijuana legalization is failing before our eyes—and failing most signally where the experiment has been tried most boldly. The failure is accelerating even as the forces pushing legalization are on what appears to be an inexorable march.”
Here’s the full text as published on Commentarymagazine.com: Continue reading Don’t Go To Pot — David Frum Weighs In
Is it really going to take a body count to stop Big Marijuana?
The tragic news yesterday of the death of a college student visiting Denver on a pot-themed Spring Break trip should sober us all.
If the evidence isn’t already sufficient to simply vote it down, States considering recreational marijuana legalization would do well to wait and see. Continue reading Student jumps to death after eating marijuana cookies
“Today’s marijuana is 300 to 800 percent more potent than the pot of yesteryear” claimed SAM New England’s Heidi Heilman in her commentary in Rhode Island’s Providence Journal on March 13, 2014.
It turns out she is right.
PolitiFact, the fact checking website, vetted this statement and rules it “TRUE” while providing the research to back up this judgment.
A 300 to 800 percent increase in potency reflects a 4 to 9 times increase over your Woodstock weed or baby boomer bong hit. Parents and voters would do well to ask what other facts SAM has got right. For example: Marijuana is addictive. Continue reading FactCheck: Marijuana Is 300-800% More Potent