Myth v. Reality - The real hazards of marijuana

by Wyoming Liberty Group

You've heard the saying: Don't believe everything you hear.

That's especially true, in the days ahead, as pro-pot forces barge into Wyoming in anticipation of the state legislative session, set to start on Feb. 12. They want to make marijuana legal.

To that end, they will tell you marijuana doesn't kill. They will tell you marijuana isn't dangerous. They will tell you marijuana isn't a health hazard. They will tell you that legalizing marijuana will reduce the illegal trade. They will tell you legalizing marijuana will bring big tax dollars to the state coffers.

Propaganda—to put it politely.

Now, for the facts.

In Maryland, a young couple was celebrating their six-month wedding anniversary on Valentine's Day. She was 20. He was 21. After church, they went for lunch but later, as they drove home, another vehicle crashed into them head on. That driver was impaired by marijuana. The young couple died.

In Arizona, an Army veteran who served honorably while deployed in Iraq smoked a significant amount of marijuana when he returned to the United States. One day, he was found in the backyard of his home. He had hanged himself from a tree. He was 31 years old. That awful night, he left behind a note to explain what had happened: "I ruined my brain with drugs," he wrote. His heartbroken mother blamed his use of marijuana for his death.

In California, a teenager started smoking marijuana. The encounter became a habit as she began inhaling powerful marijuana dabs and vaping concentrates. But then something terrible began to happen to her health: She started vomiting many times per hour. Eventually, in pain and weakened, she was hospitalized—at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. Doctors diagnosed her with Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome—CHS—a condition caused by frequent, long-term use of marijuana. If left untreated, it can cause kidney failure, seizures, brain swelling and death.

These aren't isolated stories. The damage caused by marijuana is real—and legalizing it only makes it worse.

First, the marijuana of today isn't what it was yesteryear. The average potency of pot—the level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the principal psychoactive ingredient—has jumped dramatically in recent years. So, too, has the number of Americans who use marijuana, from 17.5 million in 1992 to 52.5 million in 2021.

The result? About 30 percent of marijuana users have some kind of marijuana-use disorder, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Among 12- to 17-year-old children, the legalization of marijuana is linked to a 25 percent increase in marijuana-use disorder.

As if that isn't alarming enough, marijuana-related visits to the emergency room in the United States have skyrocketed, nearly doubling from about 456,000 in 2011 to about 804,000 in 2021.

What's more, children younger than 12 years old across the country were exposed to THC—the psychoactive constituent of marijuana—about 2,500 times in 2020, more than four times the number of times it happened just a few years earlier, in 2018.

Traffic fatalities, where drivers tested positive for marijuana, have increased dramatically in states that have legalized marijuana. For instance, one in four road deaths in Colorado involved marijuana, according to the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice in 2020.

These are the facts. They should be enough to dispel the myths of marijuana legalization.

But here's more.

The legalization of marijuana isn't dampening the illicit market for the drug, which, by the way, remains federally illegal. Legalization is encouraging drug dealers. For instance, authorities in the Oregon-Idaho region seized over 1.3 million illicit marijuana plants in 2021, a massive increase from 5,260 such seizures in 2018.

In states that have legalized marijuana, the promise of a tax revenue windfall hasn't happened. In California, for instance, marijuana taxes represented 0.49 percent of the state budget in fiscal year 2021-22. For Colorado, it was even less—0.09. In Oregon—0.3 percent.

Yet, consider the high costs of legalizing marijuana. Such as the nearly 30 million gallons of water that outdoor marijuana grow sites consume in California. Or the massive amount of carbon dioxide that indoor marijuana grow-sites spew into the atmosphere.

And what about the most devastating cost of marijuana—the human toll? If we open the door to marijuana in Wyoming, where will it lead?

Stay tuned. More information to come from your friends at Wyoming Liberty Group.