President Joe Biden recently chose a few seconds of his State of the Union address to laud the progress his administration has made in pardoning marijuana offenses and his controversial rescheduling review that is now being conducted by the DEA at his request.
True, people should not be imprisoned for simple marijuana possession (the fact they haven’t been for years is another point entirely). And expunging low-level arrest records makes sense. Even the scheduling review, a long, bureaucratic process meant to determine the category of a controlled substance, is a routine process that happens every five to 10 years or so.
But the president missed an opportunity to do something a lot bigger: to talk about, as he well knows, the dangers of today’s super-strength marijuana, and its connection to psychosis, suicide, heart disease and myriad other conditions.
For the “listen to the scientists” camp, the Department of Health and Human Services’ recent review of marijuana has been nothing short of anti-science. In one fell swoop, the agency threw out decades of precedent to invent a new, politically expedient, non-medical test to justify their recommendation for marijuana to be rescheduled. Dozens of scientists, including former ONDCP officials have denounced the review process. Chief among their concerns: accelerating the already large commercialization of marijuana and giving them a tax break for their advertising that often targets kids.
Speaking of scientists, today they speak almost in unison about the unmitigated disaster that the state legalization of marijuana has been. The American Psychiatric Association has said, “There is currently no scientific evidence to support the use of cannabis as an effective treatment for any psychiatric illness,” noting that “much of the evidence supporting cannabis use for non-psychiatric medical diagnoses remains anecdotal and based on small, limited studies.” The American Medical Association, in 2023, took the position that “scientifically valid and well-controlled clinical trials conducted under federal investigational new drug applications are necessary to assess the safety and effectiveness of all new drugs, including potential cannabis products for medical use.” When it comes to marijuana’s scheduling, the FDA has now found itself largely at odds with the rest of the medical field.
To be clear, even though the FDA recommended rescheduling marijuana to Schedule 3, the agency has still not approved marijuana for the treatment of any disease or condition. Nor are they advocating for full legalization, a nuance often missed.
This expansion of the industry will ultimately harm our kids. Despite claims that the profit-driven marijuana industry would not sell to minors, when past-month high school users in Colorado were asked to identify the one source where they “usually” obtained marijuana, 4.9% said, “I bought it at a marijuana store or center.” In Arizona, 21.0% of 12th graders that used marijuana said they “bought it from a dispensary within Arizona.” Evidently, marijuana dispensaries are regularly selling to thousands of minors every year –– these youths are admitting it themselves.
Since the creation of Big Marijuana, the plant has now been genetically bred to nearly 99 percent potency, from just 3 percent in the Woodstock days. With this jet fuel has come a host of new harms: marijuana addiction rates are now up to 1 in 3, and your chances of developing schizophrenia are five-fold according to new research. Even though the industry lies that it “chills you out,” this new high potency weed is causing more anxiety and psychosis than ever before.
A recent study in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that daily marijuana use is associated with a 25% increased likelihood of heart attack and a 42% increased likelihood of stroke, compared to non-use. In addition to other known harms, marijuana use appears to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
You won’t hear that from Colorado’s weed entrepreneur-turned-marijuana-regulator Ean Seeb or in the industry’s relentless advertising, though.
Much like Big Tobacco, which happens to now be one of the top investors in the marijuana industry, Big Weed is up to the same tricks: Target kids and hook an entirely new generation of high potency users.
They’re lacing THC, the ingredient that gets you high, into candies, cookies, sodas, and gummies, and they’ve paid countless Instagram and TikTok influencers in the business to push these drugs on our youth. Their goal is the same as Phillip Morris’ was — make as much money off the vulnerable as you can before you get caught. No wonder daily use is almost at an all-time high.
In the midst of rising crime rates in cities across America, combined with a raging mental health crisis among youth from the pandemic, we cannot afford to play politics with marijuana. Every state with legalized pot has watched youth use, youth addiction, and youth suicides skyrocket. Neighborhoods with pot shops have witnessed a more than 1,000% increase in property crimes.
Legalization has made both Colorado and America less safe. Thousands of plants are seized monthly from large illegal grow sites across the Front Range and on the Western Slope, leading to new taxpayer-funded grant programs to equip law enforcement to properly deal with the problem. States like Oklahoma and California have watched as the drug cartels, foreign operators, and gangs have taken over the state-legal market and raked in big bucks. Seventy percent of California’s marijuana sales occur on the illicit market.
Far from the TV ads for Amendment 64 promising the drug dealers would miraculously disappear, they’ve only gotten stronger — and now they have the backing of foreign actors.
Lawmakers are raising the alarm as Chinese criminal syndicates with potential ties to the Chinese Communist Party have swooped in and backed state-legal marijuana firms. An unclassified Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo estimated that Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations are linked to 749 illicit marijuana farms in Maine alone, producing more than $4 billion in revenue. The Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, a coalition of law enforcement agencies, reported transnational criminal organizations “connected to China have increased their presence in large-scale marijuana cultivation and export.” Similar operations are taking place in Oklahoma and California.
A bipartisan, bicameral letter from Congress was written to the Department of Justice to deal with these issues, and disturbingly, the only member of Colorado’s delegation to sign the letter was 5th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn.
For the promise of a few drops in the bucket of tax revenue, politicians are sacrificing our children on the altar of marijuana profits. And generations to come will pay the price of high-octane THC becoming more available than ever.
Reducing the legal restrictions and societal discouragement of marijuana through a political farce is nothing to celebrate.
Let’s hope the president as well as the rest of Colorado’s Washington delegation get that message.
Luke Niforatos is the executive vice president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.