Letter to Honorable Xavier Becerra, Secretary – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Concerning recent reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has recommended rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to a Schedule III drug, from Gregory F. Murphy, M.D. Member of Congress
Social Justice Dooms Legal Pot Shops to Failure
Social Justice Dooms Legal Pot Shops to Failure
Reading about the enthusiastic ganja-preneurs who scored the New York’s first recreational marijuana sales licenses, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. They don’t know how much the deck i…
Mother Seeks Changes to Mental Health Laws After Son’s Death
“>https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article266933196.html[/embed]Fresno mother lost her son due to his mental illness. Now she helps others avoid same fate
Michelle Reed shares her experience to benefit other parents so they can help their own teens before tragedy occurs due to mental illness.
We Need to Talk about Cannabis in Wake of Highland Park Shooting
Perspective: We need to talk about cannabis in the wake of the Highland Park shooting
Long-term cannabis usage is associated with psychosis, and it is dangerous to view it as benign recreation, particularly in light of revelations about the July 4 Highland Park shooter.
Los Angeles Times Editorial Board Scolds State for Promoting Hi-Potency Pot
Editorial: Are state fair officials high? They should not reward super-potent marijuana
Health officials are raising alarms about a new contest at the California State Fair that will award a prize to the marijuana with the highest THC.
The Colorado Sun: Opinion
<a href="https://coloradosun.com/2022/01/04/marijuana-colorado-medicine-politics-opinion/">https://coloradosun.com/2022/01/04/marijuana-colorado-medicine-politics-opinion/</a> ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Irish Times: Opinion
Why America will regret legalization
Why America will regret legalizing marijuana
Public opinion is warming to legal pot. Public opinion is wrong. The Democrats have a new moral crusade. It’s youth-oriented and free of identity politics. It’s got nothing to do with Trump, or Russia. Today’s Democrats are fighting for your right to get baked.
Beautiful Boy Movie Review by Dr. Robert DuPont
Dad Whose Son Died of Heroin Overdose Warns Marijuana is the Root Cause
New York United Way Executive Warns Marijuana Legalization will Harm Youth
Commentary: If New York legalizes marijuana, youth will be at risk
The recent state Department of Health report regarding legalization of marijuana for recreational use, if read closely, provides substantial evidence that doing so could have serious negative impacts on our youth.
Colorado U.S. Attorney Says Cannabis Industry Likely Will Receive Criminal Charges
Opinion: High-potency pot poses risks to the developing brain
By: Diane Macintosh, MD, 5/15/2016 In my psychiatric practice, I treat patients with psychotic illnesses including schizophrenia. Most were born with a genetic vulnerability to develop the disorder, but many share another important life experience: they smoked pot from an early age. Debate has raged across Canada about the impending legalization/decriminalization of marijuana. Canadian physicians, in their role as advocates for physical and mental health, have been conspicuously absent from the debate. This troubling void in leadership is apparent from the lack of informed discourse exhibited across all forms of media. Our failure to educate Canadians regarding the potential risks of street pot, particularly for a developing brain, has important social, physical and psychological implications.Doctor Warns Vermont: You are Getting a One Sided Story
When the drug crisis hits home. The heartbreak of 50,000 dead is everywhere
By: Robert Charles, 1-4-17, Washington Times Do not want to read further? It’s other people’s kids. It’s up to someone else. It’s not in my town. Beware the draw of denial. The latest numbers suggest Americans have grown indifferent, uncoupled from the reality of drug abuse at their elbows. The liberal, and frankly unconscionable, appeal to indulge in abuse of narcotics as “recreation” is where rational minds should part company. The result is a spike in emergency room incidents, fatal drug overdoses (which often involve opiates, but often start with marijuana), drugged driving (escalating nationwide), reported domestic abuse (always tied to substance abuse), and drug related crimes.What Child Is This?
By: Robert Charles | 12/10/2016, Townhall “That would be leadership – and long overdue. So, pull the drug czar back to Cabinet rank, put Federal resources and smart people on enforcing the law, and educate the country.”Myths and money behind push for legal marijuana, says Donald Charles
(Donald Charles, Ocean City resident and attorney, is the Ocean City municipal prosecutor and a former Cape May County prosecutor)There you go again, Dr. Gupta
Astute Reader Notices Recreational Drug Use Plays a Role in Mass Shootings
Colorado Springs Editorial Slams Politicians Citing Negative Outcomes of Marijuana Commercialization
Santa Barbara City Councilman on Why He Voted No on Pot Shops
Randy Rowse, longtime councilman in California town explains his objection to recreational marijuana.Opinion: Jeff Sessions, Barbara Bush, Roger Goodell and Me
Enough is enough–marijuana affects communities, families–Letter to NewsMiner
Don’t legalize recreational pot–Letter to Penn-Live Opinion
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is reporting that between 30,000 and 40,000 Americans are dying each year from opioid overdoses. Most of these are not suicides but, are the consequences of people using “stuff” which is profoundly more potent than they imagined. From our local communities, to the state, and federal government levels, we are alarmed and we should be. Parallel to the “opioid epidemic” is the “cannabis epidemic” which is going unnoticed and unreported. We see weekly hype about so called “medical marijuana,” but, little about the tragic consequences of cannabis overdoses. Why? One reason is that opioid overdoses kill and cannabis takes the lives of its victims in a less dramatic way. Cannabis induced psychosis robs the victims of their meaningful life. The proverb says, “There are many ways to lose one’s life and dying is just one of them. (Read more by clicking on link, below)Opinion piece by a millennial: Vote NO on Prop 64 (legalizing marijuana in California)
Guest column by Mara Hughes, freshman creative producing major For any individual who chooses to smoke or consume marijuana for recreational purposes there are significant health risks, from chronic diseases to cancer to life-altering mental illness. Contrary to popular belief—or at least what those who profit off of the sale of marijuana for recreational use would like you to think—marijuana use does not pose a milder health risk than or even an equal health risk to smoking tobacco. Marijuana is arguably WORSE.A Letter to Editor in a Small Town in Oregon: Marijuana Argument Makes No Sense<h/3>
Evidence Against Pot Legalization is Overwhelming
So why should you care about CA legalization if you don’t smoke dope?
- If California’s drought is your concern, then you should realize that pot plants consume six gallons of water each day. AUMA will allow six plants to be grown in every house or apartment.
- And from Washington:
- In Seattle public schools, 77 percent of all drug and alcohol disciplinary violations in a five-month period in 2014 were related to marijuana.
- The state now has 200 more pot dispensaries than Starbucks outlets.
- Nearly 50 percent of adults ages 18-25 who used marijuana drove a car within three hours of getting high.
- Here’s a short list from Colorado’s reality:
- Marijuana poisonings were up 148 percent (and 153 percent among children 5 and under).
- In 2015, drug crimes rose 12.5 percent in the city and county of Denver. (Homicides were up nearly 75 percent.)
- Illegal drug traffickers and cartels hide among the state’s flourishing legal marijuana industry.
The Southern California media are underplaying the dangers people from Colorado and Washington now face. Instead, we get thinly sourced stories and editorials that imply marijuana legalization would be harmless and beneficial to Californians. In addition, the media are failing to ask the bigger questions about legalization. Namely, what exactly is the upside? Is it buying dope without fear of arrest? That’s not happening now.
These are not just rhetorical questions. They are questions reporters and editorial writers should be asking before November.
Shadow Mother – They’d Bring Casseroles
When your child has mental illness, you are alone. You are starved to talk with other parents who have undergone a strange, self-imposed isolation. Why do we isolate ourselves? Because sharing with people who haven’t “been there” can expose your child to being stigmatized by people who just don’t understand. If my son had a physical ailment, cancer or some other terrible – yet familiar – disease, friends would circle the wagons. There’d be fundraisers. They’d bring casseroles. Instead, we suffer in silence wanting to protect our child from gossip and stigma. Every story of a kid dying from drugs or committing an incomprehensible act of violence is a shot to the heart. When my son experienced his psychotic break, my heart actually hurt. I understood fully what it means to have a “broken heart.” God and Jesus became my refuge. There, I could rage away, I could pray, I could beg. Well-meaning friends told me, “You just have to have hope. You have to believe. You have to think positively.” You nod and agree, but hope can be hard to find some days. How do you deal with overwhelming disappointment, grief at the loss of the child you gave birth to? Where is the child you knew and loved, the one you diapered, cooked for, helped with homework, took to guitar lessons, attended every soccer, baseball and football game, prepped for college, and thought you had “launched?” I want to stand in my child’s old bedroom and scream. Submitted by a parent whose young adult son has once again become entangled with the neurotoxic marijuana plant.Now is the time for Sweden to reciprocate for the leadership the US provided to Swedish alcohol policy at the end of the 19th century. Today it is “un-Swedish“ to use drugs.
Roberts: Blowing Smoke to Legalize Pot
The Republic: 7-8-16 http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2016/07/08/roberts-blowing-smoke-legalize-pot/86826538/Marijuana insert doesn’t tell the whole story
I have friends and acquaintances who live in grow areas and have heard their fears, complaints and issues with growers such as direct or indirect intimidation through the use of threats, vicious dogs or deadly weapons. They feel forced to turn a blind eye or deaf ears for fear of retaliation.
Imagine owning a home in our beautiful foothills and having to put up with this nonsense for six months every year. It’s not only unfair, it’s dangerous. Until the skunkweed farmers can police their own, they should not be supported. In June, vote against this initiative.
— Chris Nicodemus, Chico
Just say NO to pot
By Tyler Rowland POSTED: 4/14/2016Whether you know someone who smokes pot, have smelled its scent on a stranger or been exposed to it in other scenarios, marijuana has become ingrained in the American culture. According to a study conducted through the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, the number of children exposed to marijuana is increasing at an alarming rate. The study (found on drugfree.org), found that between 2006 and 2013, there was a 147.5 percent increase in children under the age of 6 being exposed to marijuana, and in 75 percent of those cases, the child was under 3 years old.
While I won’t bemoan any of my peers for choosing to use the drug for more legitimate reasons — for medical purposes or relief from stress and anxiety — an unnamed teacher interviewed for the popular man-on-the-street blog Humans of New York most clearly explains my take on teens using marijuana: “People say pot makes you more creative, but from what I’ve seen, it narrows my students’ minds until they only reference the world in relation to the drug.”
As humans, we can define ourselves however we please, but to allow oneself to be defined by a plant is simply insulting. And as an artist, here is one of my least favorite phrases in the English language: “How high were you when you made this?” That’s a loaded question that flat-out ignores any other source of inspiration for a creative piece. I recognize that choosing to partake or not is completely up to each and every individual, but speaking from the perspective of someone who has been in a classroom setting where marijuana was ingested openly: Please keep your drugs to yourself.
Letter: Don’t legalize pot for recreational use
More than 47,000 people died from a variety of drug overdoses last year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported, but Massachusetts will have legalization of marijuana for recreational use on the referendum ballot in September!4-21-16 Blue Mass Group: Posted by MA Senator Jason Lewis
The scientific evidence is now absolutely clear that marijuana is unsafe for young people whose brains are still developing. Cognitive development, physical health, mental health and career prospects may all face serious impairment. Approximately one in six people who begin using as a minor will become addicted to marijuana. These young people and their families face a terrible struggle to overcome their dependence.
While some of the proponents of the ballot question are no doubt motivated by social justice concerns (notably Dick Evans), the money behind the campaign comes from the national Marijuana Policy Project which is motivated far more by making profits than fighting injustice.