13 states have legalized marijuana for medical use and 24 states have done so for recreational use.
Voters approved medical marijuana for medical patients in 2016 by more than 71%. But recreational pot is another matter.
Governor Ron DeSantis quickly announced his misgiving about the recent proposition by stating, "Do we really need to do more with that? Do we want more marijuana in our communities? I don't think that will work out well." Well, why won't it work out well? Why the apprehension? What has happened to other places where the growing, processing, selling, and casual marijuana use have increased? Statistics have been accumulated from legalized states like Colorado, Washington, and Alaska, that reveal positive correlations between marijuana legalization and things like increased crime, impacts on the homeless, the work force, and drugged driving stemming from as early as 2012 to 2018.
Making marijuana easily available for our youth will likely contribute to permanently affecting their brain's executive function of thinking, planning, solving problems, making decisions, and setting priorities.
Kevin Sabet, of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, makes it clear: "Floridians can expect to see Big Marijuana and its allies in Big Tobacco dump millions of dollars into a ballot initiative that will unquestionably be framed around things like 'social justice,' 'tax revenue,' 'rights,' and even 'health care.
Pro-legalization supporters, such as those who proposed legalization in Florida, have a tendency to decontextualize the world in which today's marijuana breaths.
Given all the alarm bells, including the nefarious characters behind such a push, are we actually better off adding marijuana to the mix of legal drugs today with other monsters like cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl roaming? My answer is an emphatic no! In a 2014 survey in the International Journal of Drug Policy, 10 percent of high school students made it clear that they did not use marijuana but would if it were legal.
No comments:
Post a Comment