Comment; Right isn’t always popular. I agree with keeping pot illegal
By REBECCA LURYE| HARTFORD COURANT |JAN 23, 2019 | 4:45 PM A New Haven pastor addresses the health and safety uncertainties related to marijuana legalization.
There is more momentum than ever behind efforts to legalize marijuana, but critics said Wednesday there is no room to negotiate on prohibition.
Led by Republican state Rep. Vin Candelora, of North Branford, a panel of lawmakers, police chiefs, clergy members and students met in Hartford to ask that Connecticut stand its ground against the green tide rising across the country. Their news conference came days after more than 40 House Democrats introduced the year’s first bill to legalize marijuana, a priority of Gov. Ned Lamont.
“As time has gone on and as research has come forward I have become more and more adamant that as a nation, this is a mistake in what we’re doing,” Candelora told about 75 people at the state Capitol Wednesday morning. “This really is the commercialization of a drug that is being disseminated onto our residents for people to make money. It is the new big tobacco from the 1950s.”
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Drugged driving laws are far from perfect
This year’s first proposed bill to legalize marijuana would find a driver impaired by marijuana if they have at least 5 ng/ml of THC in their body. Seven states currently have a similar set amount, called a “per se” limit, ranging from 1 ng/ml to 5 ng/ml.
But these limits are not as simple as blood alcohol levels. The presence of THC in the blood does not always correlate to when a person last used marijuana or how impaired they are, which is why three other states have zero tolerance for the presence of THC in the body, and nine more states have zero tolerance for THC or a byproduct of it.
“I would like you all to pause and think about what might happen when we have people driving on I-95 stoned,” said Dr. Deepak D’Souza, a psychiatrist and researcher at Yale University School of Medicine who has been researching marijuana since the 1970s.
This uncertainty around preventing people from driving high has prompted state Rep. Gail Lavielle, of Wilton, to propose a study of how law enforcement can detect marijuana impairment. She hopes that study will clear up whether legalization of marijuana leads to an increase in marijuana-related crashes.As marijuana debate heats up, questions about drugged driving persist »
Legal marijuana may trickle down to youth
About 6 percent of U.S. 12th-graders use marijuana daily, according to the most recent Monitoring the Future study of youth substance use, released in December.
Critics, and some proponents, of legalization say that could increase if recreational marijuana becomes legal.
“It is evident that the legislation will be playing Russian roulette with our kids and our kids’ lives,” said Abraham Hernandez, associate national chapter director of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Council. “Let’s not sacrifice our children, the next generation, on the alter of political expediency in the state of Connecticut, and just say no.”
One 2017 study of Colorado youth found there was little change in adolescent marijuana use after retail sales began in 2014, though there was a significant increase in kids who perceived marijuana as easy to access.
And nationwide, marijuana use has plateaued: it’s unchanged among 10th- and 12th-graders compared to five years ago, and the proportion of 8th- and 10th-graders who reported using marijuana in the past year has remained stable since reaching its lowest level in 2016.
Marijuana is not a harmless drug
Several health officials and doctors cited concerns Wednesday about the impact of cannabis use on adolescents and adults alike.
About 9 percent of users become dependent on marijuana, research shows, but potential health effects go beyond feeling a lack of productivity and motivation, or mild symptoms of withdrawal.
Chronic marijuana use is negatively associated with achieving important developmental milestones in young adults, according to UConn findings, and other studies have tied marijuana use to respiratory problems, a higher risk of developing alcohol use disorder and the onset of mental illness among those already predisposed.
“People who are born with the right genes, if exposed to cannabis, can have about a two-to-four fold increase of developing schizophrenia,” said D’Souza, the Yale researcher. While academics are split on the issue, there is evidence that chronic use of high-THC marijuana increases adolescents’ risk of experiencing psychosis, and developing schizophrenia.
“Who will pay for the cost of this lifelong illness?” D’Souza asked.
Legalization could cost more money than it raises
Some opponents worry marijuana will only worsen the state’s budget crisis by creating additional costs to public health, safety, education and the workplace.
The Rev. Todd Foster, one of several clergy members who spoke against legalization during Wednesday’s forum, highlighted the uncertainty of those costs, saying it was unknown whether drug treatment, injury, loss of work, damage to property and other issues would offset “all of the hoped-for financial gains.”How much money would recreational marijuana really generate in Connecticut? »
The legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal office said in 2017 legalizing and taxing marijuana would generate more than $30 million in taxes in its first full year, far less than the $100 million to $180 million windfalls projected by pro-marijuana advocacy groups like Connecticut NORML and Connecticut United for Reform and Equity.
Either way, those estimates are dwarfed by the state’s budget deficit of nearly $1.5 billion, which is projected to grow to $2.3 billion in the 2020-21 fiscal year.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group dedicated to maintaining prohibition of marijuana, has estimated legalization would cost Connecticut $216 million in 2020, “far outweighing even the rosiest tax projections,” according to the group’s 2018 report.
That report estimates potential increases in crashes related to marijuana, employee absenteeism, emergency room visits and other consequences.
Legal pot won’t kill the black market
In Colorado, a 2018 investigation by Rocky Mountain PBS found legalization had caused the state’s black market to expand, not contract as most had predicted.
Law enforcement groups in California and Washington say they’re also fighting a thriving illegal market, fed in part by demand from prohibition states and the ease of reselling medical marijuana and plants grown at home for personal use.
Then there are the shortages of certain products at retail shops, limits placed on how much pot one person can buy and high taxes on recreational cannabis products.
“Maybe the black market will just disappear,” Foster, the New Haven pastor, said Wednesday. “But maybe, as has been the case in other places, they will simply become more dangerous, devious and determined to survive by any means necessary.”
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