When I was around 10-years-old, my little sister and I — learning the harmful effects of nicotine at school — convinced our parents to quit smoking. The decline of cigarette smoking, through education, has been one of our country’s biggest public health successes, saving countless lives.
Until the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on tobacco concerning the harmful effects of smoking, everyone thought there was no harm in smoking. Can you imagine what the world would look like if we knew the adverse results of nicotine in 1920?
Four short years ago, voters in Missouri passed an amendment that made the “medical” use of marijuana legal. I voted against it.
As I wrote in 2018, my reason was simple: “Make no mistake, this is just the first inroad to making Missouri the ninth state to legalize recreational marijuana use in the United States.”
I was right. Marijuana is back on the ballot this year, just like I predicted. No matter what you call it — marijuana, weed, pot, dope, grass — it’s bad for you. I knew that when I was 16, and I know it now.
Marijuana has real risks that impact the health of users. Here are 13 negative side effects of using cannabis.
1. Addiction. Roughly 10 percent of people who use marijuana will become dependent on it, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, putting pot in the top ten of addictive illegal drugs. This number increases to 16 percent for those who start using before 18. In comparison, 6.2 percent of the U.S. population has an alcohol use disorder — the clinical diagnosis of alcoholism.
The following three include serious effects of pot on your brain.
2. Memory loss. Research published in JAMA Internal Medicine confirms that heavy weed smokers had “poorer verbal memory in middle age than people who didn’t smoke or smoked less.”
3. Social anxiety disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and even schizophrenia and paranoia.
4. Marijuana can cause permanent IQ loss of as much as 8 points when begun under age 18.
5. Heart damage. One study found that people who use pot are “26 percent more likely to have a stroke at some point in their lives than people who didn’t use marijuana.”
6. Lung problems, similar to tobacco when smoked.
7. Low testosterone, leading to sluggishness, weight gain and diminished libido.
8. Appetite irregularities.
9. Risk of greater potency. The potency of marijuana has continually increased since the 70s.
10. Decrease in motor responses.
11. Poor decisions (such as voting to make marijuana legal.)
12. Diminished Immune System. THC may suppress your immune system, making you more vulnerable to infection.
13. Using cannabis during pregnancy can negatively affect the developing baby.
According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, marijuana users “are more likely to have relationship problems, worse educational outcomes, lower career achievement, and reduced life satisfaction.”
The reason Amendment 3 is on the ballot is money. If this passes, a select few will make millions, and countless others — you and me — will pay the costs financially and socially.
The amendment we will be voting on next month will make weed legal for adults — ages 21 and older. A similar law for alcoholic beverages has not kept beer out of the hands of teenagers.
With the increased availability of marijuana in society, we have to assume that more of our children and grandchildren will smoke pot.
Legal drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco, currently account for a significant burden on society. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol use alone has a yearly burden on the U.S. economy of $249 billion. This is not because they are more dangerous than pot and other illegal drugs but because they are legal. Voting to make marijuana legal in Missouri will only heighten its effects and cost on society.
It’s been ten years since Colorado voted to legalize cannabis. In my column next week I will examine what this has meant for the Centennial State.
