Marijuana – Page 32 – Family Council

Group Spent $1.9M on Failed Marijuana Amendment: State Report

Nov 1, 2024Jerry CoxMarijuanaMarijuana, Marijuana Amendment

Reports filed this week with the Arkansas Ethics Commission show the group backing marijuana in Arkansas spent more than $1.9 million on its 2024 campaign.

Arkansans for Patient Access worked unsuccessfully to pass Issue 3, an amendment drastically expanding marijuana in the state, this year.

Issue 3 would have made more than 30 changes to Arkansas’ constitution.

Among other things, the amendment would have given a handful of businesses a monopoly over marijuana in Arkansas, and it would have removed restrictions that protect children from marijuana marketing.

Issue 3 would have given free marijuana cards to immigrants and out-of-state residents who come to Arkansas to use marijuana.

Under this measure, marijuana users would no longer need to show they suffer from a specific medical condition listed in state law — which would have made it easier to use marijuana recreationally.

Issue 3 also failed to limit the amount of THC in marijuana products.

All of this would have meant more marijuana in Arkansas.

Arkansans for Patient Access hired canvassers to collect petition signatures to place Issue 3 on the ballot. However, in October the Arkansas Secretary of State announced that Issue 3’s sponsors failed to meet the legal requirements to place the measure on the ballot.

That prompted Arkansans for Patient Access to file a lawsuit against the Secretary of State. On October 21 the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024 failed to qualify for the November ballot.

All told, the campaign for Issue 3 cost Arkansans for Patient Access $1,956,299.76. Most of the funding came from members of the marijuana industry, and the group spent it primarily on petition canvassing, consulting services, and legal services.

With that said, marijuana is a multi-billion dollar industry. That means this probably will not be the last time someone tries to legalize marijuana in Arkansas.

A growing body of research shows marijuana is dangerous.

For example, a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that states that legalized commercial marijuana sales saw self-harm rates rise by 46% among men ages 21 to 39.

Marijuana can have damaging effects on adolescent brains — including permanent loss in IQ, difficulty thinking and problem-solving, reduced coordination, and increased risk of psychosis.

We have also written time and again about how marijuana’s legalization in other states has actually emboldened drug cartels and organized crime.

Some of these illegal marijuana operations are tied to labor trafficking and violent crime, and some have connections to foreign interests like the Chinese Communist Party.

A CBS News segment last year highlighted how Chinese investment is driving illegal marijuana production across the U.S.

CBN reported last October that Chinese investors with “suitcases full of cash” are buying U.S. farmland to grow black market marijuana.

Other correspondents have reported how these illegal marijuana operations contribute to “modern day slavery on American soil.”

All of this raises serious concerns about what marijuana expansion could mean for Arkansas.

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

New Research Provides More Evidence That Marijuana Hurts Unborn Children

Oct 29, 2024Jerry CoxMarijuanaMarijuana

Research continues to show marijuana use during pregnancy hurts unborn children.

A study published on Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics highlighted how marijuana exposure in the womb is linked to poorer attention span, worse planning abilities, and with increased aggression during early childhood.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time researchers have found evidence that marijuana use during pregnancy is dangerous.

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.

Writing in JAMA Internal Medicine over the summer, 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.

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

All of this underscores what we have said for year: Marijuana may be many things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

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

The Pot Experiment Has Been a Disaster: Guest Column

Oct 28, 2024John StonestreetMarijuanaMarijuana

If marijuana definitively destroys lives, should we be free to smoke?

A few weeks ago, Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports publicly supported a measure that would legalize marijuana in Florida. “As an adult,” Portnoy said, “I should be allowed to smoke weed, watch football, and eat pizza on Sunday regardless if I’m at home in Mass[achusetts] or Florida.”

To which, Matt Walsh replied:

Can you point to any state or city in the country where life has been, in any way, measurably improved after legalizing marijuana? Where are the legalization success stories? Give me just one please.

After the rushed social experiment by many states to legalize marijuana, we know the answer to this important question. Study after study has demonstrated that legal pot has been even more disastrous than predicted.

The most obvious consequences have been in basic safety concerns. Legalizing pot correlates with a rise in auto crashes, as well as property and violent crimes. Also, despite the fact that this is now a multibillion-dollar industry, legalizing pot has grown rather than reduced the black market. Promises of health benefits have also proven to be more smoke than substance.

Pot’s most devastating impact has been in the arena of mental health, which has declined to epidemic levels in the U.S. This is largely due to the increased potency of pot that is sold today, which is significantly stronger than what was passed around at Woodstock. Analyzing medical data from 6 million people, researchers in Denmark found that up to 30% of schizophrenia cases among young men could be linked to marijuana use. Though advocates and lawmakers have worked to “decrease the public’s perception of its harm,” as the study’s lead author said, they have misrepresented the reality.

Other studies also have shown a clear link between marijuana use and psychosis. For example, according to a report at CBS News,

[P]eople who smoked marijuana on a daily basis were three times more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis compared with people who never used the drug. For those who used high-potency marijuana daily, the risk jumped to nearly five times.

In other words, pot isn’t a victimless crime and, given its social impact, cannot simply be reduced to a matter of personal freedom. Not only are cannabis users more likely to start using opioids, but the National Academy of Medicine reports that using pot “is likely to increase the risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Between 2006 and 2014, emergency room visits for marijuana-induced psychosis tripled to 90,000.

Most troubling of all is the link between pot and teen suicide. According  to Colorado state statistics, the drug was found in the system of some 42% of teens who had taken their own lives, a rate nearly twice that of alcohol and four times that of any other substances. Colorado consistently ranks among the worst states in terms of suicide rates.

Critics will quickly argue that correlation does not imply causation, but connections like this must be investigated. If nearly half of stroke victims took the same medicine, would we wonder if there was a link worth our consideration? Why the reluctance to connect the dots when it comes to marijuana? Since suicide rates have risen every year that pot has been legal, we’re far past giving the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, if lawmakers took up Matt Walsh’s challenge, they’d have to reconsider and recant their promises of personal liberty, not to mention millions of dollars for education and better roads. The science here is all but settled. Pot is bad for individuals, and it’s bad for society.

The kind of freedom Portnoy is claiming ends in slavery, a slavery to one’s own passion. It is a freedom from rules and restraint, not a freedom for the good life. True freedom is a necessary means for human flourishing, but as Chuck Colson often noted, there is no true freedom without virtue. A freedom that wrecks the mind, puts families, children, and neighbors at greater risk, and contributes to general social degradation is not freedom. It’s license built on selfishness.