Groups | Search | Server Info | Login | Register

Groups > talk.politics.drugs > #7423

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

Cross-posted to 6 groups.

Show all headers | View raw

On 2/10/26 18:13, Joel W. Crump wrote:
> https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/opinion/regulate-legalized- 
> marijuana.html
> 
> 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.

	I never thought that it would lead to greater or lesser use.  I hoped 
that it would
undermined the illegal trade which was willing to sell to school children.

> 
> 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.

	Well considering the damage that alcohol may do to the body including 
the brain
and liver getting people to use cannabis if not allergic to the 
substance is better than
drinking on a daily basis or more frequent basis.
> 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.

	How many people who do not use cannabis end up in hospitals with similar
disorders?  Generally people driving under the influence of cannabis may be
adding to the problem by the bad descision to drink alcohol and smoke 
tobacco.
The most dangerous problem is that many drivers do not get enough sleep.

As for hyperemesis what else are they doing? Skipping meals? Drinking 
alcohol?
These all cause problems.

> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.

	No we have not ignored regulation. In California the drug is tracked 
from the
growers who pay fees throught the processors and the retail establishments
from which it is sold.  This keeps unwholesome additives and prevents 
the use
of deleterious chemicals from being used in the growing.  That is one of
the reasons why the taxes are so high.
> 
> 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.

	It is far less dangerous than smoking tobacco or chewing tobacco for the
use of the very addictive nicotine.  When I came online I frequently 
heard complaints
from Europeans who used hashish in their smoking tobacco that they were 
addicted
and what they were addicted to was the nicotine in tobacco.

> 
> 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.”

	People who have problems that lead them to be stoned all the time
need other help and maybe they should not smoke if they don't have the
wits to stop when any drug or substance interferes with their ability to
hold a job.
> 
> 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?”

	I have never seen anyone who is not allergic to cannabis suffer any ill 
effects.
	
> 
> 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.

	Well I do not like the packaging that mimics children's snacks. There 
is much
I do not like about the use of marketing to sell cannabis products. 
Since legalization
in California i have used mostly edible products and the State's 
interference with
packaging made me change the products I used.  I will not explain at length
but in California the packages are sold with a limit of 100 milligrams 
per package.
Formerly the product I used which was an expensive chocolate bar gave me a
dose of 11 mg. per square and about 10 squares per bar.  I had to use a 
weaker
product with 10 mg. per dose.  The original legalization was for medical 
use but
when the recreational use was legalized the taxes and rules were onerous
	I spend less than $100/month on my cannabis gummies and I use it on a daily
basis to overcome my propensity to stay awake at night0
> 
> 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.

	Oh since they are making money Mr.Trump should have no problems with it
and since taxes are paid on legitimate income regulatory agencies should 
enter
the arena of Cannabis regulation with great caution.
> 
> 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.)

		I do not know where you live.  Alcohol due to taxes is much more expensive
that in my youth about 50 years ago.   Maybe it is California state 
taxes.  But Prohibition
was an abject failure as was the attempt to outlaw cannabis use.  Users 
amounted to
a tiny proportion  of the population when it was outlawed but after 50 
years use had
swelled to the point that we were able to get the California law changed.
	That was during the HIV-AIDs epidemic and it alleviated many unpleasant 
symptom and controlled emesis due to the drugs used.
> 
> 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.
	
	That is bad thinking.  Cannabis pre-rolled at 30% THC and higher in San 
Francisco
already is at $10/joint and higher.  I don't use that but a friend does 
and the reason for
higher percentages in his case plagued by the pain of old injuries is 
that you have to
smoke less cannabis.  I myself use 5 mg. of Sativa in a fruit flavored 
gummy which
takes care of a lot of pain and discomfort in the daytime.  Shortly I 
will take a 10 mg.
dose of Indica in a similar fruit-flavored gummy.
		I hope to find a sublingual dosage soon so that I will feel the effects
sooner.  Maybe I can wean my friend from his use of smoke which contains
Carbon Monoxide to which I fear he may be habituated.

> 
> 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.

		Yes well sensible people know when they have had enough alcohol
to drink and cannabis users for medical purposes know enough that they stop
ingesting cannabis.
	Of course many people like the author of the editorial are not sensible
which is why insensible legislators banned cannabis to start with back in
1937 which happens to be the year I was born in.

> 
> 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.

		Nonsense.  The taxes in California are quite excessive.
> 
> 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.

	The medical benefits are that it relieves symptoms where otherwise the
patients might resort to opiates to ease pain or alcohol another deadly and
really addictive drug.

> 
> 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.
> 
	Cannabis use is self-regulating, use too much by any route and you will 
fall
asleep.

	bliss - youth is the most dangerous drug and those who have had it will
try to recreate though the rest of their lives.

Back to talk.politics.drugs | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

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

csiph-web