Yet Another Study Shows Marijuana Use is Dangerous During Pregnancy

Marijuana,

More evidence shows that marijuana use during pregnancy is dangerous for women and unborn children.

Writing in JAMA Internal Medicine this week, researchers announced that using marijuana during pregnancy raises a woman’s risk of developing gestational hypertension (high blood pressure), preeclampsia, weight gain, and placental abruption.

The study examined health records for 316,722 pregnant women. It adds to a growing body of scientific that shows marijuana use is harmful during pregnancy.

A 2021 study out of California found infants were 35% more likely to die within a year of birth if their mother used marijuana heavily, and that infants were more likely to be born preterm, have a low birth weight, and be small for their gestational age.

A 2023 study published in the journal Frontiers In Pediatrics found marijuana use during pregnancy could decrease a newborn’s birthweight by approximately one-third of a pound.

And a study published this year found women who used marijuana during pregnancy faced 631% greater risk of fetal death.

Right now the group Arkansans for Patient Access is actively working to drastically expand marijuana in Arkansas.

If passed, the amendment would give free marijuana cards to immigrants and out-of-state residents who come to Arkansas to use marijuana.

The amendment would guarantee marijuana growers and sellers a monopoly over the state’s marijuana industry.

Marijuana users would no longer need to show they suffer from a specific medical condition listed in state law — making it easier to use marijuana recreationally.

The measure also fails to limit the amount of THC that marijuana products can contain, and it repeals restrictions on marijuana advertising.

All of this would lead to more marijuana in the state.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Growing Share of Americans Don’t Attend Church, Believe God Had No Part in Human Origins: Gallup

Christianity, ,

A growing share of Americans believe God had no role in the origins of human beings, according to Gallup. A separate poll released this year found weekly church attendance is declining in America. Together, the findings underscore how Americans’ religious beliefs have shifted over the years.

In a report released Monday, pollsters at Gallup found the percentage of Americans who agree with the statement, “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process,” has risen from 9% in 1999 to 24% this year.

Despite this increase, most Americans surveyed still said they believe God either created human beings in their present form or that God guided the evolutionary process.

The rise in support for atheistic evolution in America tracks with decline we have witnessed in church membership and attendance.

A 2013 Gallup Poll found most Americans believe religion is losing influence in America — but a majority of Americans also believe the nation would be better off if Americans were more religious. Another Gallup survey published that year found weekly church attendance in America had decreased to levels roughly on par with where it was in the 1940s.

In 2017, Pew Research Center found a growing share of Americans identify as “spiritual but not religious.”

And earlier this year, Gallup reported that weekly church attendance has declined in America since 2000.

Along the way, pundits and pollsters have also noticed growing interest in the occult — especially among young people.

It’s worth pointing out that a large number of people still attend church, and most Americans still profess to be Christians, but the changes our country is seeing are still significant.

We have written before how — contrary to popular belief — the so-called “culture wars” are not prompting people to stop going to church. Churches have opposed abortion and infanticide for the better part of the past 2,000 years, and Christians have affirmed that marriage ought to be the union of one man to one woman since the first century. Believers have addressed these topics and others publicly for the past two millennia.

Unfortunately, declining church attendance and shifting religious views could be a symptom of people simply seeing church gatherings — and faith in general — as inconvenient, unnecessary, and irrelevant. In fact, many believers think they can follow Christ without the church. But being part of a local group of believers isn’t optional. It’s an important part of discipleship. Christians help each other grow in the faith.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Treasury Department Official Claims State Laws Against Debanking Could Hurt National Security

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Last week a U.S. Treasury official reportedly wrote a letter to lawmakers criticizing state measures intended to combat “debanking.”

In recent years news outlets have reported how government policies encourage banks to designate conservative organizations as posing a “high risk” — giving the banks an excuse to close their accounts.

As a result, some states have passed laws prohibiting financial institutions from closing bank accounts based on an organization’s beliefs or who it chooses to associate with.

The U.S. Treasury Department apparently sees that as a problem. In his letter to lawmakers, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson reportedly said, “State laws interfering with financial institutions’ ability to comply with national security requirements heighten the risk that international drug traffickers, transnational organized criminals, terrorists and corrupt foreign officials will use the U.S. financial system to launder money, evade sanctions and threaten our national security.”

But there is evidence that the U.S. Treasury Department has actually weaponized banks and other financial institutions against conservative organizations.

The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has released a report that found:

  • After the events of January 6, 2021, federal law enforcement officials from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the FBI initiated multiple discussions with financial institutions to discuss ways financial institutions could share customer information with federal law enforcement outside of normal legal processes.
  • Law enforcement and private institutions shared intelligence through a web portal run by the Domestic Security Alliance Council — a partnership led by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
  • The U.S. Treasury Department gave banks and other financial institutions guiding “typologies” — patterns that could be used to identify suspicious people or activities — including search terms and patterns like “TRUMP” and “MAGA”, and encouraged financial institutions to comb through transactions for terms like, “Bass Pro Shops,” “Cabela’s,” and “Dick’s Sporting Goods” when looking for “Homegrown Violent Extremism.”
  • “Americans doing nothing other than shopping or exercising their Second Amendment rights were being tracked by financial institutions and federal law enforcement.”

In 2021 Family Council’s credit card processor terminated our account after designating our organization as “high risk.”

At 10:29 AM on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, our office received a terse email from our credit card processor — a company owned by JPMorgan Chase — saying, “Unfortunately, we can no longer support your business. We wish you all the luck in the future, and hope that you find a processor that better fits your payment processing needs.”

Within sixty seconds, our account was terminated and and Family Council could no longer accept donations online. All we can do is speculate that our conservative principles and our public policy work might have had something to do with the decision to close our account.

Unfortunately, other organizations have had similar experiences as well. In fact, corporate shareholders, state attorneys general, congressmen, and news outlets all have expressed concerns over conservatives being wrongly labeled as “high risk” or “hate groups” and subsequently debanked.

Banks that are too big to fail should also be too big to discriminate. Nobody should have their bank account closed for what they believe.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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