OPINION:
Easing governmental restraints on marijuana will cause deadly, costly harms and send the wrong message (“Trump revives push to downgrade marijuana in federal drug laws,” Web, Dec. 12).
It sends the wrong message because marijuana has no medical value. The Food and Drug Administration has never approved inhaled or ingested marijuana as a medical product.
Allowing marijuana businesses, which include Chinese organized criminal groups and Mexican cartels, to take tax deductions by moving the substance to Schedule III will further incentivize a product that causes documented harms. (S.B. 471, the No Deductions for Marijuana Businesses Act, would prevent this.)
Marijuana-linked harms include schizophrenia, psychosis, anxiety, cognitive failures, adverse respiratory events, cancer, cardiovascular problems, heart attacks, reduced brain activity during memory tasks and worsened post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms for veterans.
Nearly 1 in 10 cannabis users become addicted. That rate skyrockets for teens, whose brains are still developing, and for daily users.
Besides the harm cannabis causes individual users, it also costs governments that bear the costs of treatment and communities that suffer from a rise in deadly accidents caused by cannabis.
President Trump fights senseless deaths and harms incurred in wars; he should also fight to prevent the deaths and harms incurred by cannabis.
JONATHAN IMBODY
Quinton, Virginia
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