Pot lobby’s talking points masking hidden dangers
Arecent Liberty Mutual survey found that most teenagers believe they drive better, or at least no worse, high on marijuana. Research shows the opposite, that smoking pot impairs driving and can be as deadly behind the wheel as alcohol, but teens don’t read scientific journals.
Apparently, neither do the pundits who repeat pro-marijuana talking points even when those points have been proved wrong.
The latest is syndicated
ED GOGEK columnist Froma Harrop, proclaiming legalization will boost state-tax revenue (“Marijuana sales sprouting taxes, savings for Colo.,” Opinions, April 30).
The marijuana lobby sold legalization to Colorado and Washington state with this same promise, that taxes on pot would fill state coffers and fund education. But experts now say legalization will cost those states money.
A study by the Colorado Futures Center, a Colorado State University think tank, concluded that “the costs of regulating recreational marijuana — plus possible extra costs for law enforcement, public health and human services — may exceed the tax revenue from the recreational marijuana industry.” No one should be surprised. According to a Rand Corp. report, taxes on alcohol cover less than 10 percent of alcohol’s cost to society. Why would pot be different?
Harrop also says states will save money spent on arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations of pot smokers — another pot lobby talking point that’s also untrue. This should be obvious; police in America don’t go looking for pot smokers. They almost always find pot when arresting someone for another crime.
Three-fourths of all prison
inmates are substance abusers, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, and many smoke pot. But most of them got arrested for crimes they committed because they were drunk or high, and that includes violent and property crimes. Even if drugs were legal, they’d still be in prison.
Selling drugs gets people locked up, too, but possession — almost never. According to the Arizona Sentencing Report, fewer than 100 of Arizona’s 40,000 inmates are in prison solely for drug possession, and most of those pleaded down from a more serious charge.
Besides, history shows that when drugs are legal, use and abuse increase. Since drug abuse causes most crime, legalization would actually increase criminal-justice costs.
The marijuana lobby position that legalization will keep pot out of the hands of kids is equally wrong. Kids have no trouble getting legal alcohol. And data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health shows teen marijuana use is 30 percent higher in “medical” marijuana states.
America has the choice between legalizing drugs, which would promote drug abuse and cost states money, or maintaining tough drug laws, which prevent crime and protect the next generation. The marijuana lobby is on one side of this debate. Good research is on the other.