Pubdate: Thu, 02 Jan 2020
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: William Luti
Note: Headline by Newshawk

THE MARIJUANA EXPERIMENT IS A FAILURE

The editorial board is right to take a stand and tell the truth about
marijuana. The grand marijuana human experiment in the "legal" states,
abetted by an addiction-for-profit industry and politicians hungry for
tax revenue, has taken a cruel toll.

By any objective benchmark, the experiments have failed:
emergency-room visits, driving fatalities, calls to poison control,
youth use and suicidal ideation have increased since legalization.
Overproduction and black-market sales have collapsed the legal revenue
streams, which are insufficient to cover the societal harms caused by
high-potency THC.

When nearly every health and psychiatric association in America is
opposed to legalization, why are we experimenting with the health and
safety of our children? Why are banks, which have been warned that
cartels will launder heroin money through legal pot shops, so anxious
to reap the windfall from sales of a federally-illegal substance?

Why are hundreds of communities in the legal states now banning pot
shops? Why are emergency-room doctors and mental-health clinicians
creating new protocols and insurance codes to treat marijuana
addiction, poisoning and hyperemesis?

The answers to these questions aren't pretty. They have to do with an
addiction-for-profit model that targets the vulnerable 10% of the
population and a cross-generational mentality that rationalizes use.
Drug experiments belong in labs, not U.S. neighborhoods.

William Luti

Hudson Institute

Washington
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MAP posted-by: Matt