Stirring the Pot: What the Pro-Marijuana Lobby Doesn’t Want You to Know
Part one of a series exploring cannabis legalization
Cannabis remains a Schedule I Controlled Substance under federal law, yet more states are taking up the issue of legalization of marijuana. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have already legalized medical cannabis, and four states and DC have also legalized recreational use. Where do you stand?
Read the articles, then make your voice heard by taking the poll.
Sometimes it seems like everyone these days has joined the bandwagon in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana. The arguments abound — everything from “think of all the money our government can claim in tax revenue” to the more ridiculous “well, we legalized alcohol, why not legalize pot?” It appears the camp in favor of legalization is somehow unaware of the plethora of reasons why we should not legalize marijuana in our communities.
Here are five ways legalizing marijuana will destroy our communities, and our homeland security:
1. Environmental damage
First, marijuana cultivation is terrible for the environment. One plant alone consumes approximately four gallons of water per day. That means the diversion of creeks and other water sources. For places like California, widely known as the best pot growing region in the world, this would strain already significantly overused resources in a severely drought-stricken region. Marijuana growers are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Even worse, many marijuana growers use pesticides which have been outlawed in the United States, leading to the devastation of many animal species. Additionally, outdoor grows require deforestation around the plantations, which causes runoff to flow into the region’s rivers and watersheds, wreaking havoc on the fish population and poisoning fresh water sources. These operations are notorious polluters — money, not the environment, is their primary concern.
2. Dangerous concentrations
Tetrahydrocanabinol (THC) is the active chemical in marijuana responsible for its psychoactive effect. Recently, there has been an uptick in people using home laboratories to extract the THC from marijuana, making it into a concentrated form also known as hash oil (or any of a number of street names, such as honey oil, dabs, shatter, or budder). The hash oil is then smoked through e-cigarettes or is used in edible products. This is a potentially dangerous process. Extracting the THC from marijuana involves the use of solvents, such as butane, and can be highly explosive, resulting in property fires, injury, and loss of life. The hash oil that is produced from this process can be as concentrated as 90% pure THC, which can cause permanent, irreversible damage to the user’s brain.
3. Criminal enterprise
One of the arguments frequently heard is that if marijuana were to be legalized, we could regulate the cultivators who distribute the marijuana, which in turn would help lessen our cartel problems. The truth will likely be much less impressive. Even if it were true, cartels will pivot their operations like any other business. Because they are already involved in the significantly more lucrative heroin and methamphetamine trade, they will likely focus their energy there. Long story short, the cartels aren’t going anywhere even if we legalize marijuana.
If marijuana is legalized, don’t expect those home growers to stop distributing and yield to the state-sanctioned growers either. In Colorado and Washington, legalization has failed to stem the tide of marijuana trafficking across state lines into other regions where it is more lucrative to distribute. Growth remains out of control and our law enforcement officers are struggling to catch up.
4. More deaths
So, this one is for those who think that because we legalized alcohol, we should legalize marijuana as well. Driving while high on pot is still driving under the influence, and marijuana does impair the reflexes of drivers. So this argument is pretty much saying that if we deem the lives lost as a result of drunk driving as acceptable, we should also accept the lives that will be lost by and to those driving under the influence of marijuana is acceptable. It’s an implausible argument.
5. Hurting children
Finally, let’s talk about the effect legalization will have on our children. In Washington state, marijuana-related calls to poison control in 2014 regarding people under the age of 20 accounted for almost 50% of those calls; and between 2012 and 2014, calls regarding youths under the age of 20 increased by 80%.
One thing about kids is that they love sweets and candy. So that fresh new batch of THC-infused brownies or gummie bears is going to look very enticing to your kids. Remember earlier when I said that THC levels can be as high as 90%? Imagine what that would do to the brain of a child that is not fully developed. And it’s not just the potential the children could make a terrible mistake themselves. One in five 10th graders in Washington reported riding in a car with a driver who had used marijuana. If marijuana is legalized, it will have an effect on everyone, period: parents, kids, the elderly. And you.
With many jumping on the bandwagon, marijuana will probably continue to be legalized in other areas of the country, but it should not be done lightly. It is a far more dangerous substance than people give it credit for. Legalizing marijuana will not make our problems disappear — it will only create new ones.
And those problems will be of our own making, if we do not heed the obvious warnings.
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