Pubdate: Thu, 9 Sep 2010
Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2010 San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Contact: http://www.sgvtribune.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.sgvtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3725
Author: D. Stewart Bell
Note: D. Stewart Bell is a member of the American Board of Psychiatry 
and Neurology. He is a psychiatrist who practices in Ontario and 
lives in San Gabriel.
Cited: Proposition 19 http://yeson19.com/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/find?272 (Proposition 19)

LEGAL MARIJUANA: PROFITS OVER HEALTH

Let's abandon all efforts against smog, legalize any source of air 
pollution from either vehicles or industry, and just tax the 
pollution. Think of all the money we would raise to reduce 
California's budget deficit!

Or, how about this:

Suppose the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a drug that 
would make a billion dollars a year in profits for a drug company, 
but the drug causes brain damage in some and leaves many users 
unmotivated to earn a productive living. What would we think of the 
company - or the government - that put profits ahead of health?

Why these analogies?

The drug lobby has placed an initiative to legalize marijuana in 
California on the Nov. 2 ballot, Proposition 19. The above analogies 
are like the positions of the pro-marijuana people who claim it would 
raise a billion dollars in taxes - never mind the health and safety 
effects, or calculating who pays to support heavy marijuana users who 
do not hold jobs - and they are hoping that marijuana users will be 
helpful enough to buy it from the government and not grow it 
themselves - which the initiative allows.

The 2010 RAND Corporation study reported that if Prop. 19 passes, the 
pre-tax price of marijuana will likely drop 80 percent - from $375 an 
ounce to $38 an ounce. They predict that marijuana use in California 
will increase - perhaps more than double. The report mentions that 
the initiative could result in legal marijuana without added tax 
revenue - the initiative lets counties set their own marijuana tax 
rates, and marijuana production would likely shift to counties that 
do not tax it or that tax it minimally.

What are the effects of marijuana use?

Teenagers who smoke marijuana have double the risk of dropping out of 
high school, and teens who smoke it 20 or more times - that's just 
once a week for five months - have much less likelihood of being 
employed when they are age 32 or 33.

Schizophrenia is a lifelong illness in which individuals hear voices 
or have delusions. It costs the U.S. $62 billion a year, the majority 
of patients with it cannot hold jobs, and one in 20 persons with 
schizophrenia commits suicide. The respected British medical journal 
Lancet reviewed 35 longitudinal studies and reported marijuana use 
correlated with a 40 percent increased risk of schizophrenia, up to 
200 percent increased risk in the heaviest users.

Studying heavy marijuana users, Australian research with MRI brain 
scans showed damage - cell loss - in the amygdala and hippocampus, 
areas of the brain crucial to maintaining emotional stability and in 
forming memory.

Drug legalization advocates claim legalizing drugs will reduce crime, 
but Amsterdam has found the opposite is true: Amsterdam authorities 
say they are trying to cut the number of marijuana-selling coffee 
shops because they "generate criminality," so that the city will not 
be a "free zone for criminals."

This should give pause to California voters who value their safety 
and property. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake