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Re: It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial]

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On 2/10/26 9:13 PM, Joel W. Crump wrote:

> https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/opinion/regulate-legalized- 
> marijuana.html


I have to begin my deconstruction with the mere URL.  The NYT is a piece 
of crap, in many ways.  Particularly unfriendly toward transgender issues.


> Thirteen years ago, no state allowed marijuana for recreational 
> purposes. Today, most Americans live in a state that allows them to buy 
> and smoke a joint. President Trump continued the trend toward 
> legalization in December by loosening federal restrictions.
> 
> This editorial board has long supported marijuana legalization. In 2014, 
> we published a six-part series that compared the federal marijuana ban 
> to alcohol prohibition and argued for repeal. Much of what we wrote then 
> holds up — but not all of it does.
> 
> At the time, supporters of legalization predicted that it would bring 
> few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and 
> dependence as “relatively minor problems.” Many advocates went further 
> and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net 
> health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to 
> greater use.
> 
> It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong. Legalization 
> has led to much more use. Surveys suggest that about 18 million people 
> in the United States have used marijuana almost daily (or about five 
> times a week) in recent years. That was up from around six million in 
> 2012 and less than one million in 1992. More Americans now use marijuana 
> daily than alcohol.
> Surging pot use
> 
> Number of U.S. residents consuming marijuana, by frequency of use per month
> 
> Source: Jonathan Caulkins (Carnegie Mellon), based on National Survey on 
> Drug Use and Health
> 
> By THE NEW YORK TIMES
> 
> This wider use has caused a rise in addiction and other problems. Each 
> year, nearly 2.8 million people in the United States suffer from 
> cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, which causes severe vomiting and 
> stomach pain. More people have also ended up in hospitals with 
> marijuana-linked paranoia and chronic psychotic disorders. Bystanders 
> have also been hurt, including by people driving under the influence of 
> pot.


Yeah, well, if they're smoking that much, to get hyperemesis syndrome, 
FFS, control yourself, jeez.  And driving stoned is a joke, this is 
typical media giving lip service to a minor issue, I'd rather have 
someone driving too slowly in the right lane on weed, than driving drunk 
(disclaimer:  it does depend on the individual and the occasion in 
question).


> America should not go back to prohibition to fix these problems. The war 
> on marijuana brought its own costs. Every year, authorities arrested 
> hundreds of thousands of Americans for marijuana possession. The people 
> who suffered the legal and financial consequences were 
> disproportionately Black, Latino and poor. A society that allows adults 
> to use alcohol and tobacco cannot sensibly arrest people for marijuana 
> use. We oppose the nascent efforts to re-criminalize the drug, such as a 
> potential ballot initiative in Massachusetts this year that would ban 
> recreational sales and home growing.


We agree, there.


> Yet there is a lot of space between heavy-handed criminal prohibition 
> and hands-off commercial legalization. Much as the United States 
> previously went too far in banning pot, it has recently gone too far in 
> accepting and even promoting its use. Given the growing harms from 
> marijuana use, American lawmakers should do more to regulate it. The 
> most promising approach is one popularized by Mark Kleiman, a drug 
> policy scholar who died in 2019. He described it as “grudging 
> toleration.” Governments can enact policies that keep the drug legal and 
> try to curb its biggest downsides. Culture and social norms can play an 
> important role, too.
> 
> The larger point is that a society should be willing to examine the 
> real-world impact of any major policy change and consider additional 
> changes in response to new facts. In the case of marijuana, the recent 
> evidence offers reason for Americans to become more grudging about 
> accepting its use.
> 
> Over the past several decades, supporters of marijuana legalization 
> often called for a strategy of “legalize and regulate.” It is a smart 
> approach. Unfortunately, the country has pursued the first part of it 
> while largely ignoring the second.


"Regulate" is a douche word, here.  The author may not realize it.  He 
or she may think they are making a really based point, but it's a bunch 
of hooey.  You either legalize or you don't.  Period.


> We want to emphasize that occasional marijuana use is no more a problem 
> than drinking a glass of wine with dinner or smoking a celebratory 
> cigar. Many Americans find it enjoyable to smoke a joint or eat an 
> edible, with friends or alone. Some people with serious illnesses have 
> found relief with marijuana. Adults should have the freedom to use it.
> 
> Still, any product that brings both pleasures and problems requires a 
> balancing act, and marijuana falls into this category. Yes, it is safer 
> than alcohol and tobacco in some ways, but it is not harmless. The 
> biggest concern is excessive use. At least one in 10 people who use 
> marijuana develops an addiction, a similar share as with alcohol. Even 
> some who do not develop an addiction can still use it too much. People 
> who are frequently stoned can struggle to hold a job or take care of 
> their families. “As marijuana legalization has accelerated across the 
> country, doctors are contending with the effects of an explosion in the 
> use of the drug and its intensity,” a New York Times investigation 
> concluded in 2024. “The accumulating harm is broader and more severe 
> than previously reported.”
> 
> Jennifer Macaluso, a hairdresser in Illinois, experienced these harms. 
> She turned to marijuana to treat severe migraines, and the drug helped 
> at first. After months of use, though, she started getting sick. Her 
> nausea and vomiting became so bad that she had to stop working. Only 
> after months of seeing doctors did one finally confirm marijuana was the 
> problem. “Why don’t more doctors know about it?” she told The Times. 
> “Why didn’t anyone ever mention it to me?”
> 
> Part of the answer is the power of Big Weed. For-profit marijuana 
> companies, made possible by legalization, have a financial incentive to 
> mislead the public about what they are selling. Marijuana and CBD 
> companies have made false claims that their products can treat cancer 
> and Alzheimer’s. Others have sold products, such as “Trips Ahoy” and 
> “Double Stuf Stoneo,” in packages that mimic snacks for children. The 
> companies’ executives know they can increase profits by downplaying the 
> harms of frequent use: More than half of industry sales come from the 
> roughly 20 percent of customers known as heavy users.
> 
> The legal pot industry grew to more than $30 billion in U.S. sales in 
> 2024, close to the total annual revenue of Starbucks. As the industry 
> has grown, it has increased lobbying of state and federal lawmakers, and 
> it has won some big victories. Marijuana companies, not casual smokers, 
> are the biggest winners of Mr. Trump’s decision to reclassify the drug 
> from Schedule I to Schedule III. The change will increase the profits of 
> these businesses by causing the tax code to treat them more favorably. 
> This does not qualify as grudging toleration.
> 
> A better approach would acknowledge that many people end up worse off 
> when they start to use marijuana more frequently. The goal should not be 
> elimination. It should be to slow the recent rise, and perhaps partly 
> reverse it, while acknowledging that many people use marijuana safely 
> and responsibly. Alcohol and tobacco offer a useful framework. Both are 
> legal with limitations, including relatively high taxes, open-container 
> laws and regulations on alcohol and nicotine levels. The goal is to 
> balance personal freedom and public health.
> 
> Marijuana, however, is less regulated in several crucial ways. The 
> federal government taxes alcohol and tobacco, for example, but not 
> marijuana. And increases in tobacco taxes have been a major reason that 
> its use has declined during the 21st century, with profound health 
> benefits.
> 
> The first step in a strategy to reduce marijuana abuse should be a 
> federal tax on pot. States should also raise taxes on pot; today, state 
> taxes can be as low as a few additional cents on a joint. Taxes should 
> be high enough to deter excessive use, on the scale of dollars per 
> joint, not cents. (Federal alcohol taxes, which have failed to keep pace 
> with inflation since the 1990s, should rise, too.)


Here we go, tax the shit out of it, they don't seem to comprehend there 
is still a black market for it, it's a plant, the legal industries can't 
compete when they're taxed to hell.  Duh.


> An advantage of taxes is that they fall much more on heavy users than 
> casual smokers. If a joint cost $10 instead of $5, it would mean a lot 
> of extra money for someone now smoking multiple joints a day and may 
> change that person’s behavior. It would not be a big burden for someone 
> who smokes occasionally.
> 
> A second step should be restrictions on the most harmful forms of 
> marijuana, which would also be similar to regulations for alcohol and 
> tobacco. Today’s cannabis is far more potent than the pot that preceded 
> legalization. In 1995, the marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement 
> Administration was around 4 percent THC, the primary psychoactive 
> compound in pot. Today, you can buy marijuana products with THC levels 
> of 90 percent or more. As the cliché goes, this is not your parents’ 
> weed. It is as if some beer brands were still sold as beer but contained 
> as much alcohol per ounce as whiskey.
> 
> Not surprisingly, greater THC potency has contributed to more addiction 
> and illness. The appropriate response is both to make illegal any 
> marijuana product that exceeds a THC level of 60 percent and to impose 
> higher taxes on potent forms of pot, much as liquor is taxed more 
> heavily than beer and wine.


That is pure rubbish.  The near-pure THC products would be such as an 
electronic vape, which is all I buy, since I'm in a state where it's 
available.  Who would want to mess with flower/bud?


> Third, the federal government should take action on medical marijuana. 
> Decades of studies on the drug have proved disappointing to its 
> boosters, finding little medical benefit. Yet many dispensaries claim, 
> without evidence, that marijuana treats a host of medical conditions. 
> The government should crack down on these outlandish claims. It should 
> issue a clear warning to dispensaries that falsely promise cures and 
> then close those that do not comply.


Was that even meant to be coherent?!


> The federal government needs to be part of these solutions. Leaving 
> taxes and regulations to the states threatens to create a race to the 
> bottom in which people can cross state lines to buy their pot. Congress 
> can set a floor, as it has done, however inadequately, with alcohol and 
> tobacco, and states can build on it as they choose.
> 
> The unfortunate truth is that the loosening of marijuana policies — 
> especially the decision to legalize pot without adequately regulating it 
> — has led to worse outcomes than many Americans expected. It is time to 
> acknowledge reality and change course.


It's time for the NYT to be relegated to the dustbin of history, when it 
comes to being the forefront of info.  Newspapers schmusepapers.

-- 
Joel W. Crump

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Thread

It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial] "Joel W. Crump" <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2026-02-10 21:13 -0500
  Re: It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial] "Joel W. Crump" <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2026-02-10 21:49 -0500
  Re: It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial] Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2026-02-10 21:55 -0800
    Re: It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial] "Joel W. Crump" <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2026-02-11 02:45 -0500
      Re: It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial] Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2026-02-12 16:00 -0800
        Re: It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial] "Joel W. Crump" <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2026-02-13 11:39 -0500
          Re: It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (NYT) [I do not endorse this editorial] Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2026-02-13 09:43 -0800

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