WEEDING OUT THE FACTS
Readers take a hard look at legalizing recreational marijuana use in NM
How will we handle drug screening?
THE JOURNAL needs to run part 6 in the (marijuana) series. How will people using get or keep a job? The Journal, as well as the TV stations, have run multiple articles on businesses not being able to find enough qualified individuals who can pass a drug screening test. Are we going to force these businesses to change the way they wish to make up their staff or run their business?
And what happens to all those here and those who come here for the legal green and can’t find employment? Seems politicians only seem to see the green that may be generated, not the coming consequences of such legislation. GREG MOROSIN Tijeras
What about the collateral damage?
I AM WRITING this letter in opposition to the legalization of recreational marijuana. I hope to give a voice to those who may become collateral damage if legalization occurs.
Of course, the laws and regulations are all geared for adult use of recreational marijuana with the assumption that marijuana will not be used by teenagers. However, statistics show that even with current restrictions on marijuana, 42 percent of teenagers will try cannabis at least once. It also is proven that 9 percent of teenagers who use cannabis will become addicted to it.
Youth who use marijuana on a chronic basis while their brain is still developing are shown to have lower IQs and cognitive deficits. Long-term marijuana (use) damages memory and the ability to perform cognitive tasks, and may increase the risk for health issues, such as heart problems, later in life. Marijuana is not just a “harmless drug.”
For any user of marijuana, studies of long-term use have been linked to mental illness symptoms, such as temporary hallucinations or temporary paranoia. It can worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia.
I believe that proponents of legalization of marijuana see financial benefits to the state and look for responsible citizens who will regulate their intake of cannabis. I hope our state is full of careful people. But I am writing for those children who find themselves in a house with marijuana and no adults at home. I am writing for those high school students who become the 9 percent who become addicted. I am writing for those who are suffering from schizophrenia and find their symptoms get worse when they use marijuana. I am writing for those adults who use marijuana and find that they can no longer perform cognitive tasks as well as before and may lose jobs. I am writing for those whose bodies do not process marijuana like others do. I am writing for those who hallucinate and become paranoid. I am writing for the 9 percent who will find their lives altered through marijuana use. Easy access to marijuana will not benefit these people or those who care for them. Why are we not concerned? Their lives matter . ... KRISTINA MOODY Albuquerque
Legal cannabis may cut DWIs in NM
HOW WILL N.M. deal with drugged drivers? How are they doing it now? Does anyone really think that legalizing recreational marijuana is going to significantly change its usage in our state? Most people who want to use cannabis have already been using it for some time illegally or legally — some 70.000 on medical cannabis, I believe.
So I sincerely doubt that legalizing it will cause a sudden spike in marijuana use. What it will do is decriminalize harmless personal behavior and allow the state to focus its energy on controlling its use for all users, not just the ones with medical marijuana cards. And the increased tax revenue will be an added boon resulting in a win-win for the state and all its citizens.
Alcohol causes much more societal ills than cannabis, especially in N.M., with its DWI problem, but the two are not necessarily related. Many who would otherwise drink use marijuana instead, and it is very likely that those who only drink now would switch to cannabis if it were legalized, thereby actually having a positive effect on our DWI problem instead of worsening it.
And, lastly, Prohibition a century ago proved that trying to legislate personal behavior never ends well. RONALD SPENCER Los Lunas
Please don’t use the term ‘pot’
SHAME ON YOU, Albuquerque Journal! Shame on you for relying on such archaic and unprofessional slang in your Jan. 6 front-page article, “Legal Pot or Not?” I cannot believe that a professional publishing company would still use such derogatory and inflammatory terminology.
Pot is not the proper term for cannabis. In the worst case, marijuana can be used, but let’s remember that marijuana was a term coined by W. Randolph Hearst to United States Congress in the ’20s in a effort to make cannabis — its scientific name is Cannabis sativa — illegal. Through deceitfully correlating its use to heinous sexual crime, unwanted minorities and immigrants, he was able to accomplish his goal, a feat that we, as an American public, have been working almost 100 years to overturn. I’m sure you remember Reefer Madness. Now, I read in your paper a term used in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s to similarly refer to burnouts — potheads — and other losers.
I am a proud New Mexico medical cannabis patient — NMMCP, as written in the rules and regulations of the program — and I am personally offended at such blatant use of the term pot. I will refuse to continue to read or even acknowledge the existence of your publication if this incorrectly used word is continued to be published in future articles. Educate yourself! Educate your staff of “writers.” You are writing to cannabis patients of New Mexico, and we will not tolerate this improper and ignorant use of the word. AUSTIN OVERPECK Albuquerque
Legalizing cannabis a bad idea
LEGALIZATION OF marijuana seems to offer increased revenues for both public and private interests, as well as reduced criminal caseloads for the judicial system. In any view of benefits, costs must be considered, too.
A search for “effects of marijuana on the prefrontal cortex” will yield articles from the scholarly to the easyto-read. The prefrontal cortex is the “decision center” of the brain and the last to mature, oftentimes not developing fully until as late as about age 25. It has a vital effect on the formation of personality, planning, goal-setting and moderating social behavior. Marijuana use, especially when it’s begun early in life and sustained over time, can measurably damage these critical functions.
Additionally, there are measured effects of marijuana use on the impairment of driving. For over 20 years, the following information has been available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Drugs and Human Performance Fact Sheets: “Marijuana has been shown to impair performance on driving simulator tasks, and on open and closed driving courses for up to approximately three hours. Decreased car handling performance, increased reaction times, impaired time and distance estimation, inability to maintain headway, lateral travel, subjective sleepiness, motor incoordination and impaired sustained vigilance have all been reported.” This report, which describes many other effects of marijuana use, can be found by searching for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Drugs and Human Performance Fact Sheets,
https://www.wsp.wa.gov/breathtest/docs/webdms/DRE_ Forms/Publications/drug/Human_Performance_Drug_ Fact_Sheets-NHTSA.pdf DOUG PRICE Albuquerque