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Marijuana, Addiction, Legalization and the Parable of the Boiled Frog

The slow boil of marijuana legalization is underway. When will we panic? And, will it be too late?
The slow boil of marijuana legalization is underway. When will we panic? And, will it be too late?

Those of us involved in monitoring the rise of corporate marijuana should understand the value of our disquiet. It is an early warning sign.

The Parable of the Boiled Frog

Over twenty years ago M.I.T. systems thinker, Peter Senge, wrote about the “parable of the boiled frog.” In short: if you place a frog in a shallow pan of boiling water it will immediately try and jump out. But if you place the frog in warm water, and don’t startle him, he will remain there, unbothered. If the temperature of the water rises gradually, the frog will stay put in the pan, until it’s too late and he’s unable to climb out. As ghastly as the image of the boiled frog is, the lesson is clear. We are not unlike the frog. Our ability for sensing threats to survival is geared to immediate and sudden changes, not to slow, creeping, gradual changes.
(The Fifth Discipline: the Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter M. Senge, Doubleday. August 1990)

What are the top factors which will awaken the rest of America to the bigger picture? Can we make clear the threats and opportunities we sense around us, or is the lull of the warm water just too tempting for a country brimming with distraction? Can we pay attention? Continue reading Marijuana, Addiction, Legalization and the Parable of the Boiled Frog

Fact Check: Prisons Filled with Nonviolent Marijuana Users? FALSE

Recently John Boehner, and even more recently Elizabeth Warren, repeated a lie that has been used repeatedly by marijuana drug dealers, the pot industry, and as the misguided basis of a “social justice” argument, to trick voters into legalizing and commercializing marijuana.

“When you look at the number of people in our state and federal penitentiaries, who are there for possession of small amounts of cannabis, you begin to really scratch your head. We have literally filled up our jails with people who are nonviolent and frankly do not belong there.” He said in an interview with Bloomberg News – Wednesday, April 11, 2018

For this statement he received 4 Pinocchio’s from the Washington Post!
Four Pinoccios for John Boehner's whopper of a lie about marijuana and incarceration rates

 

Four Pinocchios = Whopper!

Elizabeth Warren’s faulty claim about marijuana convictions invoked a further look into the incarceration myth:

“…more people locked up for low-level offenses on marijuana than for all violent crimes in this country. That makes no sense at all.”
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in remarks at the We the People summit, June 13, 2018

Her claims were similarly debunked by the Washington Post. Warren’s position is curious. To base her reputation and so vocal a public position in support of an addition-for-profit-industry by quoting this self-created, self-serving myth, is completely unjustifiable-in-fact. Her legacy as a prescient consumer protection advocate is put seriously into doubt.

Continue reading Fact Check: Prisons Filled with Nonviolent Marijuana Users? FALSE

Marijuana and the Opiate/Heroin Epidemic: Brain Science Reveals a Connection

This is a 3D model of what happiness looks like in our brain. What you see is a myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain's parietal cortex which creates Happiness. What happens to this little guy when in his early years - during the time his brain's host is between 12 to 25 years old, he's exposed to 21st century THC? Research is beginning to reveal, not such good things.
This is a 3D model of what happiness looks like in our brain. What you see is a myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain’s parietal cortex which creates Happiness. What happens to this little guy when in his early years – during the time his brain’s host is between 12 to 25 years old, he’s exposed to 21st century THC? Research is beginning to reveal, not such good things.

Current brain science is suggesting strong plausibility that the opiate and heroin epidemic will continue to worsen with commercializing and industrializing production and sales of marijuana at levels the likes of tobacco, alcohol and prescription drugs.

With more 21st century marijuana in our communities, opiate and heroin use rises. The brain science is beginning to explain why this is. We are, with marijuana research, where we were in the 1920s and 30s with tobacco research linking smoking to cancer.

Studies are revealing that the cannabinoid-opioid systems of the brain are intimately connected.

In the areas of the brain where cannabinoids bind, opioids bind as well, and if you modify one system, you automatically change the other. Continue reading Marijuana and the Opiate/Heroin Epidemic: Brain Science Reveals a Connection

Major Point of Marijuana Advocates is a Lie

Major points of marijuana advocates are lies.Well-funded advocates are attempting to make the case for the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts.

Their major point – marijuana smokers have their lives ruined by the criminal justice system – is a lie. Since 1975 – 1975! — all first time marijuana users in Massachusetts have had their cases automatically sealed or dismissed. Even marijuana distribution is a misdemeanor. I was a prosecutor and defense attorney in Middlesex County from 1986 to 1993. No one went to jail for marijuana possession. No one.

This deception is nothing new. In Oregon, legalization advocates lied that marijuana users amounted to more than half of all drug arrests in the state. They were exposed by politifact.com . The true figure was a tiny fraction.

So why lie? Because the legalization movement has never really been about justice or freedom, it’s driven by corporate interests who make money off addiction. Marijuana is the new Big Tobacco, and like tobacco, the industry will need to capture the youth market for repeat customers. Continue reading Major Point of Marijuana Advocates is a Lie

Youth Brains + Lead Paint = IQ -7; Youth Brains + Marijuana = IQ -8. You do the math on legalization.

Lead paint laws protect public health.
Lead paint laws put the public health rights of our youth ahead of those of paint manufacturers.
Lead-Paint-Like-Marijuana-Lowers-IQ-in-Youth
Youth Brains + Lead Paint = IQ-7; Youth Brains + Marijuana = IQ-8. Can you do math?

Look what a trip to the Benjamin Moore paint store revealed this weekend.  A brochure entitled:   “Prevent Lead Poisoning.”

By 1978 we passed laws to get lead out of our homes, our gasoline, toys and other consumer products.

Why do we keep lead out of our environments?  To protect our children’s health and our own health. So, why worry about lead and not weed? 

The risks are eerily similar to those of ongoing marijuana exposures.  Except lead can cost a young person 7 IQ points where marijuana use can cost 8 IQ points.

 

We’ve taken lead out of our environment. Why would we ever choose to put more marijuana into our environment?

It’s not a civil rights issue. It’s a public health issue.

Continue reading Youth Brains + Lead Paint = IQ -7; Youth Brains + Marijuana = IQ -8. You do the math on legalization.

Marijuana Legalization is a money-grubbing, addictions-marketing sham

Pour on millions of dollars of ideological advertising twisting the realities of this drug and ignoring the implications of its broad commercialization. Then get to work opening the markets to another addiction-for-profit business juggernaut that takes a half-century of public health and safety damage before the industry can be brought to its knees — just like Big Tobacco.

“There is ample evidence to support the government’s conclusion that “this psychoactive, addictive drug is not accepted as safe for medical use at this time, even with medical supervision,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Broderick wrote.

Pot proponents stuck the Rohrbacher amendment into a thousand page appropriations bill in 2014, after relentless lobbying by drug advocacy groups, cutting funds for pot enforcement in medi-pot states. And so a budget was passed and the government was not shut down. This hardly means the administration supports legalizing pot, even if, for the budget year, medi-pot states are lawless when it comes to marijuana law enforcement.

This latest, consistent, decision speaks for itself. Research has been done– hundreds of studies. Pot’s harms outweigh its utility. FDA approved and safely dosed formulations are the best option for cannabaoid derived drugs. They are already available.  Legalization and its subsequent commercialization is a money grubbing addictions-marketing sham.

http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Feds-stick-to-court-argument-that-marijuana-is-5990798.php?cmpid=twitter-desktop

 

Why “Colorado regulators can’t answer basic pot questions”…

Colorado can't answer marijuana questions.
Why Can’t Colorado Officials Answer Basic Pot Questions?

…because pot is an unregulateable habit-forming and addictive substance which quickly slips out of control.

Already a black market is under-selling “taxed and regulated” pot in Colordao.  There is still no reliable way of knowing exactly what is in the pot being sold.  Reliable testing would be so expensive it would send many more users to cheaper unregulated sellers. The notion of seed to sale tracking is a pipe dream.  You can’t put a gps chip in every seed, bud or leaf.  It’s easy to dump excess inventory onto the black market. And it’s easy for criminals to grow and sell the drug — but difficult for anyone to determine the source of the product.

Where there is more pot, there is more pot use — including among young people with developing brains, one in six of whom will develop addiction.

Continue reading Why “Colorado regulators can’t answer basic pot questions”…

Me, Me, Me. Greed, Deception Fuels Marijuana Legalization

Weed Greed--Marijuana and Legalization
Meanwhile, the marijuana moguls can be laughing all the way to the bank. And taxpayers can pay for the cleanup costs.

“I, I, I, I.” “Me, me, me, me.” “Money, money, money, money.” “I can buy whatever I want. Even ballot questions which defy the rule of the law of the land. Anytime I want to. In fact, I’m only getting better at it.”

That’s what comes to mind when John Morgan opens his mouth about marijuana ballot questions.

But in many ways, this guy is the only one speaking the truth when it comes to marijuana politics.

Now the marijuana advocates in Florida are saying they should have done what worked in other states: trot out sick people and exploit them for public sympathy; find the rogue former law enforcement official who will publicly say marijuana legalization is a really great ideal; write vague and complicated ballot questions that the people won’t actually understand;
work the young and impressionable college crowd hard — with late adolescent brains still under development they are easy targets for marijuana friendly votes.

Pour on millions of dollars of ideological advertising twisting the realities of this drug and ignoring the implications of its broad commercialization. Then get to work opening the markets to another addiction-for-profit business juggernaut that takes a half-century of public health and safety damage before the industry can be brought to its knees — just like Big Tobacco. Meanwhile, the marijuana moguls can be laughing all the way to the bank. And taxpayers can pay for the cleanup costs. Continue reading Me, Me, Me. Greed, Deception Fuels Marijuana Legalization