Group Gets $1.75 Million for Campaign to Legalize Recreational Marijuana in Arkansas

Marijuana

Recently five companies each contributed $350,000 toward an effort to place a recreational marijuana measure on Arkansas’ 2022 ballot.

The five donations to the pro-marijuana group Responsible Growth Arkansas totaled $1.75 million to promote recreational marijuana in Arkansas this year.

According to filings with the Arkansas Ethics Commission, the donations came from:

  • Bold Team, LLC, in Cotton Plant, Arkansas
  • Good Day Farms Arkansas, LLC, in Rogers
  • Osage Creek Cultivation, LLC, in Berryville
  • DMCC, LLC in Jonesboro
  • NSMC-OPCO, LLC, in White Hall

In October, Responsible Growth Arkansas filed statements with the Arkansas Ethics Commission indicating it would work to amend the Arkansas Constitution to permit recreational marijuana. Former Arkansas lawmaker Eddie Armstrong reportedly is leading the effort.

According to the Arkansas Secretary of State, Responsible Growth Arkansas has until Friday, July 8, 2022, to collect 89,151 valid petition signatures from registered voters in order to place a recreational marijuana measure on the November ballot.

Researchers have found time and again that marijuana is dangerous.

Scientists have linked marijuana use with violence, psychosis, schizophrenia, depression and suicide.

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal last year found adults under age 45 who frequently used marijuana were roughly twice as likely to suffer heart attack as adults who did not use marijuana.

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

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.

The list goes on and on.

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

READ MORE

Marijuana Harms

Marijuana
John Stonestreet, Radio Host and Director of the Colson Center

According to Dr. Eric Voth in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “There exists clear medical evidence of increased psychiatric difficulties with marijuana use, including violence, psychosis, schizophrenia, manic episodes, worsening depression and suicide.”

These effects are particularly harmful for youth.

Of course, when it comes to public policy, the cat is largely out of the bag, and probably isn’t going back in. One thing, however, is becoming more and more clear with each study, despite what proponents claimed and promised: marijuana is not the harmless thing we were sold by advocates and the state.

For the record, states should not be in the business of promoting distractions to citizens in the first place, especially harmful ones used to self-medicate symptoms of loneliness, pain, or anxiety without actually addressing the root causes. But this is particularly disturbing when they accomplish this by overselling financial windfalls and underselling the social consequences.

Copyright 2021 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

READ MORE

Frequent Marijuana Users Under 45 Twice as Likely to Suffer Heart Attack: New Study

Marijuana

A new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal indicates that adults under age 45 who frequently use marijuana are roughly twice as likely to suffer from a heart attack as adults who do not use marijuana.

Researchers examined health data from more than 33,000 adults ages 18 – 44, of whom more than 4,600 reported using marijuana in the past 30 days.

The study noted that a history of heart attack was more frequent among recent marijuana users than among nonusers, and that a history of heart attack was associated with using marijuana more than four times per month.

The study’s authors even observed that marijuana’s association with heart attack appeared to be similar to tobacco’s, writing, “The association between recent cannabis use and MI [heart attack] was similar in magnitude to associations with MI [heart attack] observed for current tobacco smoking.”

It’s important to point out that this is certainly not the first study to link heart problems with marijuana use.

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

READ MORE