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One way to reverse growing rates of violent crime may be to recriminalize the use of marijuana.
Despite the urban myth that cannabis use is rather harmless, significant evidence shows otherwise. And rather definitively, at that.
Research increasingly is finding that cannabis can cause psychosis, which, of course, can lead to violence. And, even though correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate causation, it is surely no coincidence that key places that have legalized the drug have seen major increases in violence.
Allysia Finley aptly cites copious research to argue that increased cannabis use is almost surely one cause of the violent crime surge nationwide. For example, she writes, “A meta-analysis found the risk of perpetrating violence was more than twice as high for young adults who used marijuana.”
As this publication has editorialized before, years of research have shown that pot use is bad for lung health, heart health, and forms of cancer and that states legalizing marijuana have seen major increases in highway accidents and deaths, homelessness, chemical dependence, depression, suicidal behavior, and psychosis. It is particularly damaging to children. And yes, it does serve as a “gateway drug” to even worse substances such as illegal opioids.
These problems are made worse by the fact that marijuana’s potency in the past 60 years has increased by a huge amount and that average street cannabis is four times as potent as it was as recently as 1995.
Finley lists the Uvalde school shooting as one of at least six of the most horrible incidents in the past 10 years in which the culprit was a known user of marijuana. “Increasing evidence suggests a connection,” she writes.
All of this doesn’t merely suggest but argues strongly against the nationwide trend of decriminalizing recreational marijuana use and argues in favor of significantly more stringent controls on medical marijuana. Cannabis does not actually help ameliorate symptoms of pain, anxiety, and depression in nearly as many ways as people believe.
Except in very limited circumstances, dope is no cause for hope. When it comes to recreational use, the law should say “nope.”
