Posted on 08/15/2018 9:06:53 AM PDT by fwdude
Yesterday I visited our local bookstore and was struck by the abundance of magazine covers promoting marijuana. Later my wife commented that she’s received two ads this week for cannabis products, something she’s never received before! What’s going on?
In case you haven’t noticed or are simply distracted by the busyness of life, propaganda promoting marijuana and its legalization is bombarding us. Should we be concerned about something that is celebrated as a “harmless recreational” indulgence that progressive people should embrace excitedly?
Recently our state newspaper ran a prominent piece by a young woman calling for weed to be legalized. Coincidentally, she works for a statewide cannabis advocacy group. Reading her arguments and questionable statistics made me wonder if we should begin distributing marijuana freely since she opines it is so harmless and beneficial!
What follows is my pushback to the propaganda. Feel free to “borrow” any and all my counterpoints for op-eds you can submit, exposing the seductive logic.
Let’s Get Serious
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, dxxxxd lies and statistics,” said Mark Twain. He was pointing out the use of statistics to bolster weak or fallacious arguments. The dope supporter whose article appeared in our newspaper, typical of many, deserved a five star Pinocchio award for her misleading stats and misguided presentation.
Recently, I had an in-depth conversation with a police officer formerly on paid leave who has since retired. He was rehabilitating from a serious injury sustained when he confronted a young man about to commit a crime who was stoned on marijuana. He subsequently assaulted the officer, tearing his rotator cuff. He now faces numerous felony offenses plus decades behind bars, in addition to the impounding of his car containing marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps, often appears in the news with his lovely wife and two little boys celebrating his success emerging from rehab and his near-death experience. “Not wanting to be alive anymore” at one point, the champion who smoked marijuana, deceived it would not affect his ability to excel, now swears off any drugs as he encourages youth to emulate his example.
Close to where I live, a 33-year-old woman was sentenced to 30 years in prison for her reckless driving which resulted in the death of a teenager helping change his mother’s flat tire. The THP report showed her high on drugs and impaired in her driving ability as she callously fled the scene of the homicide. She’ll now have many decades to ponder her stupidity, recreational drug usage and the devastation it brought her and a grieving family.
With scores of people killed, maimed, or disabled for life from drunk driving, especially by young people, do we really want to compound the problem by adding marijuana to the mix? Teens can think they are invincible and adding a joint can seem innocuous until the tragedy happens, which it does all too frequently.
Contrary to what drug proponents profess, marijuana and other drugs take a toll—eventually, if not immediately. Drugs don’t deliver as advertised. Why do you think they call it “dope?”
Even pot-smoking, poster boy Willie Nelson, battling emphysema and pneumonia four or five times, admits his lungs have gotten “really screwed up.”
In Willie’s own words, “There’s been a lot of talk about marijuana being harmless, but I think it’s a lot more dangerous to the lungs than most dope smokers realize. Especially the strong marijuana that’s around these days. Each year it seems to get a little stronger … your lungs are not really supposed to breath anything but oxygen—pure, fresh air.”
How about the tragic, premature deaths of both Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse portrayed in recent documentaries? Both got started on the path to their destruction the exact same way, smoking weed, those “harmless” joints.
Research Studies Should Not Be Ignored As Sergeant Joe Friday used to say on the TV program Dragnet, “Just the facts!” so here they are …
The United States Drug Enforcement Agency states: “U.S. drug overdose kills more people than traffic accidents and gun incidents.” The total number cited was 46,471! If we could ask these victims how many started on marijuana or maintained their marijuana usage along with other drugs, I wonder how many would hang their heads in regret wishing they’d never succumbed to the seduction of the Pied Piper’s enticement onto this pernicious path?
My best friend growing up started experimenting with recreational drugs when he started college with me. What started as a fun escape spiraled into his premature death in his mid-20s. I carry an ache in my heart to this day from this experience.
When marijuana proponents glorify drugs and celebrate its “harmless” even “beneficial effect,” they should take heed to the words of an expert, Dr. Ed Gogek, an addiction psychiatrist. He wrote the following in the uber-liberal New York Times: “I’ve spent 25 years as a doctor treating drug abusers and they are con artists…. Marijuana activists are phony scientists. For years they said marijuana is good for glaucoma when it actually worsens it! They said it is not addictive and this is false! They said it doesn’t increase usage among teenagers and all evidence says the opposite…. It is not harmless! Youth do worse in school and have two times the dropout rate while marijuana permanently lowers their IQ.”
Joseph Califano, head of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, declares without qualification that “pot smoking adversely affects motor skills and does serious damage to the brain over the long term.” It is a fact that objective studies repeatedly show that regular users find their IQ dropping and all cognitive functions hindered. Finally, a recent study from Northwestern University established clearly that teen “potheads” had brain abnormalities related to poor short-term memory performance. Healthy individuals who did not use marijuana scored 37 times better on average than users—not just addicts—who had smoked pot in the past. The National Institute of Health makes it clear: “One in six youth who try marijuana before age 18 will either abuse it or will become addicted.” Those are dangerous odds, parents. Is this what we want for our children and grandchildren? What’s Happening in Massachusetts? The state of Massachusetts jumped on the bandwagon to legalize marijuana. After a number of months, a study was done to discover the impact on young people. The results are sobering and startling: currently 1/2 of youth ages 18–25 have smoked marijuana in the past month!
In the classic film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finally pulled back the curtain and exposed the deceiving mastermind behind the façade. May we do likewise amid celebrities and other pot promoters who glamorize toking up, some under the ruse of the “medical marijuana” argument (which can have some medicinal benefits but it’s not the only alternative).
A little while ago, in the mall where I daily exercise, a middle-aged mother darted from the coffee shop and stammered these words amidst her tears, “They just found my daughter dead!” She proceeded to tell me about her 27-year-old daughter who met a young fellow who influenced her to start smoking dope. Prior to this encounter, “she had never been involved with any drugs” but this was the gateway to her death and her mother’s devastation.
Here’s the deal: Scripture says, “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools…” (Romans 1:22). People will accuse us of being “fear mongers,” but we must not back down. Let’s winsomely and confidently communicate the truth about this massive deception permeating America today.
Yea like i said it sucks when your corner bag runs out.
After a few days of being bummed out that you are dry you get over it.
for those that DON’T that is their problem.
for the rest of us 99% life goes on...
Ahh....got it.
I personally don't see the real benefit to the public in continuing the failing war against marijuana, and as you cited in your example, the taxpayer costs to prosecute the war are obscene.
Running a 70 year old man through the legal system wringer, merely for possessing a couple of ounces of plant matter, is a ridiculous waste of precious public resources, and serves no one.
But you bring up a good point on spelled out law. And this has been my argument all along. Marijuana is never really "legalized," it just become more highly regulated, MUCH more highly regulated, when it is "decriminalized." What was once perhaps a dozen pages of penal code defining an outright ban on pot becomes 1,200 pages of regulations, a new, multi-million dollar bureaucratic agency to administer them, and never-ending efforts to keep it away from children, and mending the broken lives it causes.
Well there's your problem. Cut out the ignorant generalizations.
How adorable. Lol. Been smoking since 15. My memory is just fine. I'm 43 now. Get a life, propagandist!
What tests should be deployed in determining when someone is DUI on pot? Or are the pot defenders against DUI laws?
LOL! You’re hardly an objective judge of your own condition.
Dispensaries in my area check your ID, TWICE before any purchase is made. Under 21 ain't allowed inside the dispensary.
How many times is the street corner dealer checking your kid's ID?
I don't need to be the judge of my own condition. My Doc is usually the best judge of my mental and physical health, and they have noted I am perfectly ok.
Here in MA, pot was “legalized” in 2016. You still cannot buy it or sell it because the state government doesn’t really want to do it. So they drag their feet.
That is what I hate about government control—they have to figure out how they are going to get their cuts. And, if the people override their desires, they act like petulant children who pout and make life difficult.
Anarchy isn’t looking all that bad these days.
And you've never heard of fake ID's? They are almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
Regardless, you really don't address my point. Efforts will have to be made to insulate children from an increasingly pot-filled environment. Many of these efforts will fail.
It is never going to be the case that marijuana is fully decriminalized as if it were water. Just not going to happen.
Are you aware that the DEFAULT position over the past 75 years or so in nearly every state has been the criminalization of MJ? This has not changed, except in a handful of states. Why are people acting as if a long permitted activity were suddenly being prohibited?
I feel like I'm addressing the "gay marriage" issue here.
I know several who have been put out of business because of legal weed. It isn't worth their time or risk anymore. Sure, there are a few, but the more accessible it becomes legally, the more competition among dispensaries, the cheaper the product, the less the juice is worth the squeeze. VERY simple economics.
they'll get someone of age to buy their stuff, at a premium, for them, the way minors get alcohol these days.
Nice to see you are coming around to the argument that pot should be regulated like alcohol.
Efforts will have to be made to insulate children from an increasingly pot-filled environment.
They have already been exposed to it. There has not been "an increasingly pot-filled environment". On the contrary, there are simply more people being willing to say the use it now that its legal. When prohibitionists get their way, it doesn't cause smokers to suddenly quit. They simply go back underground and the black market explodes again.
Why are you so intent on protecting the black markets and the mexican drug cartels that supply them? That's just crazy!
And again, are you prepared to make that same argument for all the other imported hard drugs on the market? Make them legal here so that their cartels will dry up?
“Are you aware that the DEFAULT position over the past 75 years or so in nearly every state has been the criminalization of MJ?”
So? Slavery had been around for centuries, would you hold that up as a justification to maintain it? Pointing to the length of an injustice doesn’t make it better.
“This has not changed, except in a handful of states.”
It’s been legalized in 30 States and the District.
“Why are people acting as if a long permitted activity were suddenly being prohibited?”
Why won’t people just hush and let the federal government keep violating the Bill of Rights? Nannystate ‘conservatives’ are easily the worst kind.
Let the addicts die instead of bringing them back via narcan. The fewer addicts, the less demand. Less demand = less supply.
Cocaine, crack, meth, heroin, et al are un-American because their production puts everyone in the vicinity in danger. A meth lab explodes, it has potential to kill not only the cookers, but anyone in the immediate vicinity.
On the other hand, if I grow pot in my backyard, dry it in my kitchen and smoke it in my living room, it is simultaneously none of your business and not a danger to anyone else. Get your busy body nose outta my business and mind your own.
And He will.
pot (gulp) makes you store muffintop fat???? that auta cure the girls
In before the clip of Jim (from Taxi).
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