“Why can’t I smoke pot today? You smoked it back in the ’60s!”
Besides constituting the tu quoque logical fallacy (“You cut your hand off with a power saw, so I can do the same”), this argument is fallacious for at least three other reasons:
1) As a personal disclaimer, I committed many sins during my college days, but I never used marijuana or any other illegal drug. Many did during those turbulent days, but many didn’t.
2) The marijuana being legalized today is not the marijuana in common use back in the ’60s.
3) The evidence that marijuana is harmful, addictive, and leads to social harm is much stronger than ever before.
The current drive to legalize marijuana has widespread support. A 2024 Pew Research poll found that 57% of Americans favor legalization of marijuana for recreational use and an additional 32% favor legalization solely for medical purposes; only 11% oppose it entirely. Marijuana initiatives have succeeded in liberal states like New Jersey and Oregon, but also in conservative states like South Dakota, where people just don’t want the government intruding into people’s private business.
But as Montana State Sen. Greg Hertz (R-Polson) says, “People were voting for Woodstock weed, not this new high-THC marijuana.” As growers select more potent strains, the THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, which produces the “high” or intoxicating effects) has increased each year since the 1970s. According to a study by the Potency Monitoring Program, a project led by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and carried out at the University of Mississippi, the average amount of THC in marijuana has increased more than tenfold. Another study revealed that in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, and New Zealand, average THC concentrations in marijuana “increased by 0.29% each year from 1970 to 2017.”
These exploding THC levels may give users the “high” they are looking for, but they also raise the risk of “nausea, vomiting, paranoia and abnormal heart rhythms.”
“So what,” one might say, “if I’m willing to risk that, it’s nobody else’s business.” I understand that argument, and agree to some extent. (There’s more libertarian in me than many realize.)
But there is more. The medical journal Lancet Psychiatry published an analysis that included 20 studies comparing higher and lower THC marijuana, which found that users of high-THC marijuana are more likely to experience psychosis, psychotic relapse, and addiction. This creates social problems that clearly affect others besides oneself. Roughly one in ten adults who use marijuana becomes addicted, and about one in six teens. Especially in younger people, high-THC marijuana use can impair cognitive development. “Scromiting” (screaming and vomiting) is common among young marijuana users.
When Colorado legalized marijuana in 2012, I decided to take my skiing to Utah and Idaho rather than share the slopes with potheads. But sharing the highways is another matter. After Canada legalized marijuana use in 2018, accidents, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations all increased dramatically, and states that have legalized marijuana have shown similar increases. A study of 50,000 weekend drivers from 13 countries found that “the rates of positively screened cannabis users in traffic were 10-12% and in subjects involved in a car crash 26-27%.” And in Washington State, “An AAA Foundation study published in 2016 estimated that the prevalence of drivers in fatal crashes with detectable THC in their blood roughly doubled from 8.3 percent in 2013 to 17 percent in 2014.”
Today’s marijuana use is also likely to lead to violent crime. The risk of perpetrating violence is twice as great for marijuana users as for non-users, and marijuana may trigger violent behavior in people who are already predisposed toward it, but who without marijuana could have controlled it.
Increased marijuana use among pregnant women can harm preborn children, as “THC crosses the placenta and can impair neurological development.” “Prenatal exposure to marijuana has been linked to behavioral problems, mental illness and lower academic achievement in children and adolescents,” Allysia Finley writes in Missouri Medicine.
For decades, experts have disagreed whether marijuana is a “gateway drug,” that is, a drug that leads people to more dangerous drugs such as cocaine or heroin. But increasing evidence suggests a connection between marijuana and other drug use, and the higher THC doses in today’s marijuana make that more likely than before. A drug can be psychologically addictive even if it is not physically addictive, and it makes sense that when people no longer get the “high” they previously received from marijuana, they will seek that “high” from other drugs.
Here in Alabama, simple possession of marijuana can still land you in jail. But Alabama legalized medical marijuana (a subject I will reserve for a future column) in 2021, although licensing issues have delayed the implementation of the new law. And now, State Sen. Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) has introduced SB50, which would decriminalize the possession or use of up to one ounce of marijuana. The bill seems unlikely to come up for a vote in this session, but be on the lookout for it in future sessions.
Remember: We’re not talking about your grandparents’ marijuana. Comparing today’s high-THC marijuana to the “weed” of the ‘60s is like comparing dynamite to a firecracker!
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy, as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law, and as Pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church of Notasulga (woodlandpca.org). He may be contacted for speaking engagements at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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