The marijuana industry had a good day in Washington Thursday, as the House Financial Services Committee passed a bill to liberalize banking laws covering the industry. This win for pot came after a pretty tough blow: A new study published in the Lancet, a highly respected medical journal, found that high-potency marijuana can make you psychotic. In fact, about half of all cases of psychoses in Amsterdam could be prevented “if high-potency cannabis were no longer available,” the data suggest.
The study doesn’t prove causality, but it certainly suggests it may be there. It illustrates the need for more research into the careless and unscientific claims that marijuana use is harmless. It also cries out for U.S. policymakers to put the brakes on the push to legalize recreational marijuana use and weaken guardrails around “medical” marijuana.
The better policy would be to go slow, based on only solid science.
Despite myths to the contrary, marijuana is a serious health risk. It does indeed result in unhealthy dependence among nearly one-third of users. It is a definite risk (perhaps deadly) for lung health, and it is especially dangerous for heart health. Some studies also show that it substantially increases risk for a form of testicular cancer.
To be specific on heart risks, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reports: “Limited evidence suggests that a person’s risk of heart attack during the first hour after smoking marijuana is nearly five times his or her usual risk.”
Meanwhile, the measurable consequences for states that have legalized recreational marijuana have been bracing. Take Colorado, which in 2012 joined Washington as the first states to do so. Since then, marijuana-related traffic deaths in Colorado have increased by 151 percent, while overall state traffic deaths have increased by only 35 percent. Colorado emergency room visits related to marijuana increased by 52 percent, while marijuana-related hospitalizations overall increased 148 percent.
Relevant to that psychosis study, which was conducted in Europe, U.S.-grown cannabis tends to be more potent than the stuff smuggled in from abroad, leading to worse health outcomes. Moreover, as access to pot becomes less difficult, adolescents, too, find it easier and cheaper to secure. This is a looming public health disaster. A study published in JAMA Psychiatry in February found that adolescent marijuana use is associated with significant increases, by up to 40 percent, in the risk of developing depression and suicidal behavior in adulthood.
The most compelling libertarian argument for legalizing weed has been that legalization would reduce crime by removing a black-market profit incentive along with attendant violence. Since legalization in Colorado, violent crime has increased nearly 19 percent (compared to the national increase of just 3.7 percent). Likewise, property crime increased approximately eight percent, compared to the national decrease of 13.6 percent.
One comprehensive study — needing to be replicated, but still persuasive — concluded that “for every dollar gained in tax revenue, Coloradans spent approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization.”
Meanwhile, legalization has the perverse effect of driving criminal profiteers to concentrate even more on distributing “hard drugs” that are even more addictive and deadly for the user, not to mention causing psychoses that catalyze more, and more dangerous, crimes. To make up for the loss in profits from illicitly trafficking marijuana, Mexican cartels have greatly expanded their trades in heroin and methamphetamine.
Pot smokers make a fair argument that alcohol is legal despite being a deadly drug. This is an ahistorical argument, though. Alcohol is more broadly a part of American culture and always has been, making prohibition impossible. The marijuana advocates are in the midst of trying to make pot a central part of our culture. That only calls for a higher level of scrutiny of its costs and benefits. And for now, the evidence suggests that the costs are much higher than marijuana advocates are willing to admit.
