Tag Archives: Substance abuse

This Did Not Go As Planned

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On Friday, The Gatestone Institute posted an article about the impact of legalization of marijuana has had on California.

The article reports:

Six years after California legalized marijuana, the bodies keep piling up. Earlier this year, six men were murdered in the Mojave Desert. Four of the men had been burned after being shot with rifles. In 2020, seven people were killed at an illegal pot operation in Riverside County.

Violence like this was supposed to disappear after legalization. Legalization advocates argued that making the drug trade legal would end the grip of the cartels. Instead, the legal market has failed, and the cartels are taking over sizable parts of California and the rest of the country.

California’s legal drug revenues have fallen consistently, as have those in other legal drug states including Colorado, whose model helped sell the idea that drug money would fix everything.

Despite falling revenues, Colorado legislators brag about $282 million in drug revenue. That number may sound high, but it’s a drop in the bucket considering the money that the state and cities like Denver are spending on homelessness, drug overdoses and law enforcement.

While the legal drug business is also collapsing in California, the state is spending a fortune fighting marijuana even as it tries to tax it. Gov. Gavin Newsom paradoxically promised to close the budget deficit with $100 million in drug revenue, meant to be used to fund law enforcement and fight substance abuse. The state seized over $300 million in illegal pot this year and uses satellite imagery and heavily-armed raids to fight untaxed marijuana.

The article concludes:

Legalization advocates still argue that if the government lowered the high taxes on legal pot, the business model could turn around again, but even without a single penny in taxes, no amount of legal labor is going to be able to compete with illegal aliens smuggled across the border and forced to work for free by gunmen. Legal businesses can’t compete with organized crime.

Drug legalization increased homelessness and drug abuse. It boosted illegal migration and organized crime. It made life worse in every state and city where it’s been tried without delivering tangible benefits to anyone (including weed users who still get theirs the old-fashioned way) except for a few politicians who temporarily have a few million more to pass around to special interests, donors and lobbyists.

And all they had to do was hand over half the country to organized crime.

America does not need another legal, mind-altering drug. There is no evidence that legal marijuana improves the quality of life for anyone. For regular users, it simply numbs them to their responsibilities and makes them less likely to pursue worthwhile goals. That is not good for society as a whole or the people involved.

Just Because It’s Legal Doesn’t Mean It Is Safe

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On March 12th, CBN News posted an article about the dangers of marijuana and Delta-8, a substance containing THC.

The article reports:

Laura Stack told CBN News marijuana stole the life of her son Johnny.  She recalled he was a happy, intelligent child who grew up in a Christian home.  However, he began using marijuana at age 14 when his home state of Colorado legalized its recreational use.   It was a move that changed his life forever, leading to ultimate tragedy. 

“He took his own life when he was 19 years old five years later, after he became psychotic, very delusional, and paranoid, and suspicious, from using the marijuana,” she said. 

Laura didn’t realize that most of today’s marijuana contains at least 10 times the psychoactive compound THC than it did 20 years ago. 

“In my head, I said, ‘It’s just weed. I used it when I was a girl. I’m fine. It’s no big deal,’ and I was so wrong,” she said. 

Laura and her husband John founded Johnny’s Ambassadors as a way to honor their son and help prevent other people from suffering the same fate.

Former marijuana addict Zach Plant told CBN News the drug almost took his life.

“I had thoughts of other people wanting to hurt me, thoughts of the only way of being safe was to end my own life,” he said.

Zach was admitted to the hospital and was diagnosed with Cannabis-Induced Psychosis.  Symptoms include losing touch with reality, hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia.  Zach recalled the stark warning doctors gave him.

“‘If you smoke marijuana again, there’s a chance you don’t come out of psychosis. You go back into it and your brain may never recover,'” Zach said.

Nora Volkow, M.D., Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told CBN News these types of episodes are becoming more common as the drugs get stronger.

“The higher the dose of THC for example, the higher the likelihood that you will end up with a psychotic episode,” she said. “And that will lead you to the emergency room department.”

I understand that there are people who do not seem to be affected by smoking pot. However, is the risk of psychosis one that you or your children are willing to take.

The article also notes:

Aside from marijuana, there’s growing concern about another substance containing THC called Delta-8.  It doesn’t come from the cannabis plant.  Instead, it’s synthesized from a similar plant called hemp.  It can contain as much THC or more than marijuana.  

Delta-8 products like vape pens can be purchased at gas stations, convenience stores, and online even in states where the commercial sale of marijuana is illegal.  That’s because of a legal loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp nationwide. 

Julie Killian, co-founder of RyeACT, Rye Action for Children and Teens, to educate families on youth substance abuse, told CBN News she was surprised to encounter the widespread sale of Delta-8 while she was visiting a state where commercial, recreational marijuana sales were outlawed. 

“I was at a truck, one of those food trucks, and they were selling coffee in the morning, and you could get a shot of Delta-8 THC in your coffee,” she said. 

Be careful out there.

 

A Man Who Is Making A Difference

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Worcester County Massachusetts Sheriff Lewis G. Evangelides was elected to office in 2010. After learning that roughly 90 percent of the 1,100 inmates at the Worcester County Jail got there because of drug and alcohol addiction, Sheriff Evangelides began the Face2Face program to help prevent substance abuse. Over the past three years this program has allowed 100,000 students in Central Massachusetts  to see the physical effects and hear a debunking of the myths of opioids, alcohol, marijuana and other drugs.

The Telegram & Gazette posted an article yesterday about the Face2Face program.

The article reports:

Mr. Evangelides told the students that they were members of “Generation Rx,” reflecting the rapid growth in abuse of prescription painkillers such as OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin over the last decade. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in 2010 nearly as many youths tried prescription painkillers for the first time as tried marijuana.

Instead of the bring-your-own-bottle drinking parties of many middle-aged parents’ youth, high school and middle school students today go to “Skittle parties,” where they bring pills they’ve procured from medicine cabinets, Mr. Evangelides said. The practice is also known as “pharming” or “trail mixing.”

“Young people don’t even think they’re real drugs and they’ll send you to places you wouldn’t dream you’d go,” Mr. Evangelides said, as he showed video footage of the 24/7 monitoring and lack of amenities such as toilet seats that jail inmates live with.

“None of you are thinking that if you pop a Perc or an Oxy or Vicodin, you’d end up addicted,” he continued. “No one is going to offer you that Oxy and tell you, after a while you’re going to need three, six, 10 (pills), and 80 milligrams of Oxy costs $80 … and a bag of heroin is cheaper than a six-pack. You go right from that pill to that needle.”

He also exploded myths about popular club drugs such as “Molly,” a supposedly pure form of Ecstasy. Citing two deaths in one week last year of New Hampshire students who overdosed on the drug, Mr. Evangelides said, “There is no such thing as a safe dose of Molly.”

Even marijuana, which many baby boomer parents consider relatively safe, causes brain, behavioral and physical damage similar to that caused by alcohol and other drugs.

Police Chief Alan Gordon said before the program: “We have a heroin problem. We have opiates. We just did a drug search here last week and had two hits of marijuana. We’ve had overdoses.

The medical benefits of marijuana can be obtained in ways other than smoking it. The move toward legalization is a smokescreen and will have a seriously negative impact on our children and teenagers. If you believe that we need to legalize medical marijuana, take a look at the advertisements in the Sunday papers in California which promote doctors who will write prescriptions for the drug for anything from headaches to lack of appetite.

Thank God for public servants such as Sheriff Evangelides who are willing to tell our children the truth about marijuana and other seemingly harmless drugs and to show them the results of recreational drug use.

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