The increasing use and deadly abuse of marijuana among children and adolescents in the United States is a further negative consequence of marijuana legalization.
A study published by Clinical Toxicology on Monday reveals a 245% increase in the number of calls due to marijuana usage among adolescents aged 6 to 18 from 2000 to 2020, with nearly 1,800 calls in 2020 alone. Those figures, the study authors believe, have been accelerated by the trend since 2017 of state marijuana legalization — and by the fact that so much marijuana is now ingested in edible forms.
It makes horrible logic. If marijuana is legalized, more individuals will purchase, sell, and use it. According to Gallup, regular marijuana use has more than doubled since 2013, reaching 16% of Americans and over a third of individuals under 35. And 14% of Americans consume THC-infused edibles.
This wave of cultural acceptability increases the likelihood that someone will abuse the drug to the point of self-harm, especially since THC (the psychoactive component in marijuana) concentrations have been on the rise since the 1990s.
It also means that young children are more likely to accidentally consume THC-laced sweets, such as gummy bears or chocolate bars. Often, edibles are packaged to resemble popular, non-psychoactive candy brands.
That itself is a catastrophe. A growing body of evidence suggests that high THC content in marijuana and long-term use by adolescents may contribute to mental illness (the last thing our children need, given the mental illness epidemic COVID policies have caused) and long-lasting neurological changes in the brain’s reward circuitry. Additional data reveals a connection between adolescent cannabis usage and subsequent opioid use.
And these calls to poison control are just the top of the iceberg. How many kids have become regular users who aren’t making themselves sick enough for a 911 call?
The state of New York has been pushing forward with the legalization of marijuana, issuing permits for retail pot shops in recent weeks and couching its efforts in the now trendy rhetoric of equity and justice.
Meanwhile, illicit pot stores remain omnipresent, and the state has just enacted regulations permitting app and phone orders of cannabis from licensed dealers, followed by direct home delivery of cannabis and edibles.
In other words, anticipate the child abuse statistics in New York and any other state foolish enough to follow our lead to dramatically increase.
Complete marijuana legalization presume erroneously that the drug is innocuous enough to remove all societal stigma. Pot enthusiasts here and around the country, as well as the almost 70% of Americans who support legalization, should pause to consider the facts, especially the effects on children.
In the game of drug legalization, as is so frequently the case with progressive policy, children rank last.
»Awful news regarding youth marijuana use should retard legalization«