The market demand for marijuana in Colorado is 130 metric tons per year. Colorado has licensed 739 sites for growing pot; and this is spread across more than 1,200 acres of land. The marijuana industry now leases more than one million square feet of space in the Denver area, for both indoor growing and warehousing.
There has been a sharp increase in pot-related calls to poison control centers; seizures have quadrupled; and two deaths so far are attributed to marijuana overdoses.
Police departments across the country report that 27% of seriously injured drivers nationwide test positive for pot. Long-term studies in the United States and New Zealand show regular marijuana smokers—like cigarette smokers—demonstrate much more symptomatology of chronic bronchitis and emphysema than non-smokers. That should be no surprise to any thinking person.
Marijuana is sold in Colorado in the form of cigarettes, candy, suckers, cookies, and pot sodas.
An interesting account of marijuana use was published by a New York Times columnist, Maureen Down when she visited Colorado to research pot use for a future column in May 2014. Here’s how she described her encounter with a pot cookie. She bought a pot cookie, which had no dosing instructions and nibbled on it. Noticing nothing, she nibbled more. And then she writes:
“I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have arrested for being unable to handle my candy.”
Levy Thaba, a 19 year-old college student on spring break, became delirious and agitated after eating a pot-laced cookie in March. He began shaking, screaming and throwing things before jumping off a four-story balcony to his death.
Marijuana use has been linked to depression, anxiety, and mental illness—especially schizophrenia and psychosis, according to systematic reviews of studies published in Lancet, Archives of General Psychiatry and the British Medical Journal.
There should be no surprise that there is big money being made on the marijuana sales business. State legislators estimated the first full-year sales estimate at $600 million, and industry watchers expect it to reach $1 billion annually in Colorado. The money being spent in Colorado to advertise and market marijuana is coming from two major investors. George Soros and Peter Lewis, both multimillionaires, are spending 67% of the money used to spread the use of the weed. Soros has spent $80 million and Lewis has spent $40 million on this industry. You can be sure they are not investing charitably in this business—they are making money!
Pot dispensaries, like liquor stores are located primarily in low-income and minority neighborhoods. Advertising is done through billboards, taxis, bus stops, sign twirlers, and newspapers. The push is on to get more and more people hooked on the drug.
Marijuana is an entry drug into harder drug use; and I do not believe that thinking people in America should every vote to legalize the drug. It is just not worth the cost in human suffering and disablement for constructive participation in society and especially in the workforce. Would you like to meet a marijuana-intoxicated driver on the highways?
(This blog post was excerpted from Citizen Magazine, published by Focus On The Family for September 2014.)
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