It was November of 2018 that Missouri voters went to the polls and legalized medical marijuana. Before the election, I encouraged readers to vote no on the proposition.
In a column two weeks before the election, I listed 11 adverse side effects of using cannabis: addiction, memory loss, social anxiety disorders (such as depression, anxiety and even schizophrenia), paranoia, heart damage, lung problems (similar to tobacco), low testosterone, appetite irregularities, risk of greater potency, decrease in motor responses and poor decisions.
I warned in 2018 that this was the first step to make recreational marijuana use legal in the Show Me State. My prediction was confirmed four years later. A ballot initiative — financed by big marijuana — to legalize recreational use, Amendment 3, passed by a 53–47 margin on November 8, 2022.
I never understood how a society that blasts cigarette smokers would vote to make marijuana use legal.
Marijuana is not harmless. Research continually shows just how harmful it is.
Alex Berenson, former New York Times reporter and author of “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence,” reported the following on FoxNews.com: “In March, scientists in Boston reported cannabis users under 50 had a sixfold higher risk of heart attacks compared to people who didn’t. In February, Canadian researchers found people hospitalized with a diagnosis of cannabis abuse were six times as likely to die as the average person over the next five years. Suicides and trauma-related deaths made up much of the increase.”
Earlier this year, researchers in Quebec found a crucial mechanism in the brain by which cannabis can cause hallucinations and delusions. To back up that claim, physicians in Colorado reported that diagnoses of psychosis in young people have soared in the last 15 years.
That will happen in Missouri, also.
According to data from a 2023 study, “people who have had at least one psychotic episode after using cannabis are almost 50 percent more likely to develop schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and that the risk is even higher for teens and young adults.”
Researchers led by Dr. Ibrahim Kamel from the Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts recently analyzed medical records from 54 healthcare organizations across the U.S. and Europe using the TriNetX Research Network. They found that adults who smoke weed are almost four times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to those who don’t.
Dr. Daniel Amen — a psychiatrist, brain imaging specialist, and founder of Amen Clinics in California — in an interview with Fox News Digital, brought up a study that compared people who smoked cigarettes with those who smoked marijuana; the marijuana users sustained more lung damage.
I have a personal experience with cannabis. Steve was my college roommate during my sophomore year at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Not only did he smoke weed in our dorm room most nights, but he also grew his own supply in the closet under a grow light.
“Many people don’t really appreciate how important their brain is when they’re 17, 18, 21 or 23, because it really doesn’t finish developing until you’re 25 or 26,” Amen said. “And if you hurt it early, it might not ever catch up.”
Steve and I were 20-21 years old. Not being a drug user, I moved out of the dorm room with Steve as soon as I could.
Maybe you are from the mindset of “live and let live,” thinking, “if someone wants to get high now and then, it doesn’t affect me.” You would be wrong.
A recent study by Wright State University in Ohio, published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, reviewed data for 246 deceased Ohio drivers.
In a press release, researchers found that almost 42 percent of the deceased in car wrecks tested positive for THC (tetrahydrocannabinol the main psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant) with an average blood level of 30.7 ng/ML
“I was surprised to see that level,” said lead author Akpofure P. Ekeh, a professor of surgery at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, in the press release.
To those of us who warned against the legal usage of marijuana, this is no surprise. It was easily predicted. The science is clear. Marijuana is a drug that is making Americans sick.
