It probably shouldn't have surprised me that Sesh rescinded the Cole Memo, an Obama-era edict that instructed the DOJ not to interfere with states' voter-approved and regulated marijuana industries unless doing so was necessary to prevent other crimes. However, what does surprise me is that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many people in the United States continue to assert that marijuana is a dangerous drug. The facts are clear:
- There have been no known fatal overdoses from marijuana. Meanwhile, alcohol overdoses kill tens of thousands of people in the U.S. every year. Legal opioids likewise. There were sensational headlines last November about a baby who died from myocarditis after consuming marijuana, but it's unclear whether the marijuana was responsible for the baby's death. Furthermore, that baby was living in a sketchy situation in which he could have been exposed to much worse things than marijuana. Blame the parents, not the plant. There are already severe penalties for supplying any drug (including legal ones) to a minor, and at least in Colorado, edible forms of marijuana must be clearly marked and sold only in childproof containers.
- Corollary to the above, the "margin of exposure" (MOE), or the ratio of the lethal dose to the normal human dose, is orders of magnitude higher for marijuana than it is for either alcohol or tobacco. A higher MOE means that it is that much harder to overdose. In practical terms, lethal overdoses of marijuana do not occur, because the areas of the brain responsible for breathing do not contain cannabinoid receptors.
- Marijuana does not damage the liver like alcohol does, and in fact, there is research indicating that cannabidiol (CBD), the primary non-psychoactive cannabinoid compound in marijuana, can protect the liver against fatty liver disease.
- There is research indicating that smoking marijuana does not decrease lung function in the same way that smoking tobacco does. A study in 2006 concluded that smoking marijuana does not cause lung cancer.
- Speaking of CBD, it is known to be effective at controlling epileptic seizures and has, for some patients (particularly those suffering from more severe forms of epilepsy), proven to be the only effective remedy. That's why CBD is now legal in 46 states, including the reddest of red states (you can even buy it over the counter in some of those red states), but it remains a Schedule I substance at the federal level. The Colorado marijuana industry has been at the forefront of developing extremely-low-THC/high-CBD strains that can be used to control seizures without introducing any unwanted psychoactive effects. Such research could not be conducted at the federal level, because the DEA classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." Meanwhile, cocaine, hydrocodone, meth, oxycodone, and fentanyl are all Schedule II drugs. To reiterate, federal drug policy considers a compound with known medical benefits and no psychoactive effects, and which almost all states have approved for use, to be more dangerous than compounds that are literally killing tens of thousands of people a year.
- Regarding scheduling, when marijuana was classified as a Schedule I drug in the early 70s, this was intended to be provisional, until further research could be conducted. Such research was conducted by the Nixon-appointed Shafer Commission, which found marijuana to be as safe as alcohol and recommended ending its prohibition. However, Nixon saw marijuana prohibition as a convenient way to jail his political enemies, and his administration chose to double down on prohibition rather than follow their own commission's recommendations. The architect of this policy (John Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic policy advisor), as well as the implementer of the policy (John Marshall, Nixon's attorney general) were both convicted of multiple felonies in the Watergate scandal.
- Also regarding scheduling, THC (the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana), is a Schedule III drug when distributed by Big Pharma in FDA-approved pill form, but it remains a Schedule I drug in its naturally-occurring plant form. To reiterate, not only does federal drug policy consider CBD (which is non-psychoactive and has known medical benefits) to be more dangerous than most opioids, meth, and cocaine, but it also considers CBD to be more dangerous than THC, the compound in marijuana that gets you high.
- While no one should ever drive under the influence, the risk of a fatal automobile crash while under the influence of marijuana is about 7-8 times lower than the risk of a fatal automobile crash while under the influence of alcohol.
- The risk of dependence from using marijuana is less than that of alcohol and much less than that of tobacco. Marijuana does not produce strong physical withdrawal symptoms like alcohol and tobacco and other drugs do.
- The legal marijuana industry has kept billions of dollars out of cartel hands each year and has led to a sharp decrease in marijuana seizures along the U.S./Mexican border. It is noticeably reducing the power of the cartels, which will improve the security of the border over the long term.
- Buying through a heavily-regulated dispensary ensures that marijuana users know exactly what they're getting. More specifically, the THC content of the product is precisely measured, and the product is free of toxins.
- Teen marijuana use is either flat or has decreased in states that have legalized recreational marijuana. With highly-regulated dispensaries, there is less of a black market from which teens can purchase.
- There is research indicating that the availability of medical marijuana has, in the states where it is available, led to a sharp decrease in opioid-related deaths.
- The legal marijuana industry is generating hundreds of millions of dollars (perhaps even billions now that California is coming online) in tax revenue every year. In Colorado specifically, this is used for school construction and other education programs, and for public health programs (including substance abuse prevention.)
- The legal marijuana industry has, in Colorado, been responsible for one of the biggest economic booms (if not the biggest) that the state has ever seen. In 2015 alone, it created 18,000 jobs, and the industry at large is estimated to employ hundreds of thousands. By comparison, the entire coal industry employs about 75,000. By 2020, the legal marijuana industry is expected to create more than a quarter of a million new jobs, exceeding the rate of job creation in manufacturing.
- Simple possession of marijuana (i.e. a non-violent, victimless crime) accounts for 88% of all marijuana arrests, which themselves account for about half of all drug arrests. We're talking about millions of arrests, here. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether our overburdened and underfunded law enforcement resources would be better used in the pursuit of violent criminals or dangerous drugs, like meth and K2, that are actually killing people. Furthermore, there is a huge racial bias in marijuana arrests. A Black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, despite the fact that per-capita usage among those two demographics is approximately equal.
I've made the scientific arguments, and now I'm going to make some personal ones. I am not a pothead, but I know probably as many regular marijuana users as I do regular beef eaters. I also know quite a few regular alcohol and tobacco users, and a few users of harder drugs. Drug addiction has affected my family personally. I've lost family members, friends, and colleagues due to alcoholism, meth addiction, and opioid abuse. I've seen other family members, friends, and colleagues succumb to cancer and other diseases brought on or exacerbated by a lifetime of tobacco use. Meanwhile, every regular marijuana user I know is a gainfully employed, healthy, contributing member of society, and they're generally among the nicest people I've met. I've seen people play concertos while on marijuana. I've seen people negotiate raging rivers while on marijuana. Yet two friends of mine, both of whom were among these gainfully employed, healthy, contributing members of society, were locked up like animals because they had a dead plant in their possession. The War on Drugs has effected a much greater toll on people I care about than marijuana itself has.
I've seen the long-term effects of these drugs on those who have used them regularly for decades. You'll just have to trust me that a 70-year-old who has used alcohol daily for 50 years is generally in much worse mental and physical shape than a 70-year-old who has used marijuana daily for 50 years (corollary: Willie Nelson may stumble a bit these days, but if he had drunk instead of smoked for all of those years, it's unlikely that he'd still be alive.) I've seen daily marijuana users give it up for a month or more because they knew they had to take a drug test, and they were able to quit cold turkey with no problems. That isn't the hallmark of a drug that has a "high potential for abuse."
Long and the short of it: I have seen no evidence that marijuana is any more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, and I have seen quite a bit of evidence that it is less dangerous. And I'm sick of seeing hard-working people get locked away and tax dollars wasted trying in vain to eliminate it. Sesh needs to wake up and smell the 21st Century, because all he's doing right now is showing kids that the federal government is full of BS when it comes to assessing drug risk. When the DOJ chooses to focus on attacking the legal marijuana industry rather than on addressing the deadly opioid crisis, what kind of message is that sending?
