Anti-Marijuana Campaign Is Misguided
County substance abuse campaign concentrates all its spending on “No need for weed.”
“Let’s Be Blunt” ad.
Travel enough through the city, and you might notice the slogan “Let’s be Blunt, No Need For Weed” on Milwaukee bus billboards. The campaign has a different ring than the generalized anti-drug, “Above The Influence” commercials my generation grew up with. Both campaigns were created by the Milwaukee County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, or MCSAP. The “No Need for Weed” campaign comes at a time when cannabis use is being legalized in other states, while an unprecedented opioid crisis rages. Why is Milwaukee’s leadership so fixated on marijuana?
MCSAP was founded in 2011 as a county-wide response to drug abuse and prevention. Currently its targets are cannabis use among youth, and prescription pill abuse. MCSAP’s leadership includes 50 members of various professional backgrounds. I emailed MCSAP coordinator Kassandra Brown for further information about the group and its campaign.
The coalition honed in on cannabis after a 2012 Epidemiological report on drug and alcohol use. Compiled by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the 103 page document detailed potential state-wide risks. It did examine marijuana among other drugs, but the executive summary never mentions pot, and instead emphasizes the death toll from alcohol consumption and drunken driving, and “drug-related deaths… due to misuse of prescription drugs.”
The report was an influence on MCSAP: a Powerpoint presentation by the group notes that it began with a focus on alcohol and heroin abuse. But MCSAP’s website notes “after reviewing the data and through ongoing discussions, some Coalition members felt that there was something missing: marijuana.” Their website notes concerns that cannabis has “lifelong consequences (e.g. employment).”
MCSAP, according to Brown, “does not take a stand on legalization” for adults. “Let’s Be Blunt”, MCSAP stated, is solely geared towards minors under 18.
However, when asked if MCSAP feels cannabis use in youth would increase or decrease under legalization, Brown preferred not to comment. Colorado, for example, has seen cannabis use in minors drop since legalization. As for the fact that the 2012 Wisconsin Health Department report deemphasized cannabis, Brown offered no comment. As to the growth in heroin use, Brown says her group understands prescription pill overdose and heroin are related. “Our strategy may change in the future,” she noted.
Yet in a video on MCSAP’s website, Brown states that cannabis and prescription pill issues “go hand in hand.” The non-profit’s powerpoint PDF, in one slide, seemingly relates youth cannabis use and drug-related deaths. Cannabis isn’t known to cause drug overdoses, and has a questionable relationship with opioid deaths. Some legalized states actually now see fewer opioid-related deaths. Colorado has also seen prescription pill use drop by 25 percent. Controlled research has shown that use of medical marijuana can reduce opioid dependence.
The same powerpoint presentation also claims cannabis smokers are twice as likely to get lung cancer. To the contrary, numerous studies suggest cannabis may actually fight lung cancer.
MCSAP’s website provides links to numerous resources, including this graphic on prescription pill use and overdose. It compared how likely heroin users were to first use alcohol, cannabis, cocaine and prescription pills. Whereas the chart claims coke and pills increase your likelihood of trying heroin by 15 times and 40 times respectively, alcohol and cannabis ranked at just 2 times and 3 times. Currently, alcohol is not part of MCSAP’s youth-focused programs though it’s mentioned on its website, and gets by far the most emphasis in the state report. Brown wouldn’t comment on whether MCSAP feels cannabis use in youth influences opioid overdoses.
Nor would Brown say whether MCSAP still regards the “gateway drug” theory as accurate. Cannabis detractors often point to its use as the first stepping stone toward harder drugs. MCSAP’s powerpoint presentation makes direct reference to the cannabis gateway, or “entryway drug” notion.
In fact there is little evidence for this theory. Rather, it’s more likely that keeping cannabis in the black market is what exposes users to other black market drugs.
Although marijuana isn’t legal in Wisconsin, a recent poll by the Marquette University Law School found 59 percent of Wisconsinites, from across a political spectrum, support legalization. CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabis-related compound associated with numerous health benefits, is legally obtainable in Milwaukee today.
Organizations like MCSAP play important roles in community outreach and our understanding of drug and alcohol use. Its use of public money on a campaign that ignores the biggest problems of drug use while concentrating on a drug that is far more benign, seems at the very least, misguided, if not downright misleading.
Isiah Holmes, is a writer and videographer.
More about the Legalizing of Marijuana
- What Will Wisconsin Do Now That Feds Are Moving to Ease Marijuana Restrictions? - Rich Kremer - May 2nd, 2024
- A Better Wisconsin Together Renews Call for Cannabis Legalization - A Better Wisconsin Together - Apr 20th, 2024
- Republicans’ Medical Marijuana Bill Is Likely Dead - Baylor Spears - Feb 18th, 2024
- The State of Politics: Why GOP Divided on Medical Marijuana - Steven Walters - Jan 15th, 2024
- Bill Decriminalizes Marijuana Possession Under 14 Grams - Rich Kremer - Jan 15th, 2024
- GOP Proposal Supports Small, State-Run Medical Marijuana Program - Anya van Wagtendonk - Jan 8th, 2024
- Senate Democratic Leader Reacts to Republican Medical Marijuana Proposal - Dianne Hesselbein - Jan 8th, 2024
- Democrats Push Again to Legalize Marijuana - Erik Gunn - Sep 25th, 2023
- Senator Agard: Response to Speaker Vos’ Medical Marijuana Comments - State Sen. Melissa Agard, Senate Democratic Leader - Apr 20th, 2023
- State Residents Paid $36 Million in Illinois Marijuana Taxes in 2022 - Isiah Holmes - Mar 20th, 2023
Read more about Legalizing of Marijuana here
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Can’t wait to see the moronic comment that Conservative Digest pharma shill Bob will likely post…
Stop the reefer madness! Legalize it!
Bob “Wisconsin Conservative Digest’s” ruse has been uncovered! He is actually a left wing mole who has gone deep undercover employing a fake “crazy far right wing republican” persona in a ploy to brilliantly point out all the insane unfounded illogical ideas and policies of actual far right wing republicans! Well played “Bob” well played indeed!
Thanks, Isiah. Your article was well researched and includes documentation. I also agree with your assessment. It seems misguided for MCSAP to focus more on marijuana and less on more harmful substances.
@Jo Walston, agreed but by focusing on more substances that require MCSAP to focus on alcohol, which is far more deleterious to the individual and society than cannabis, and as we all know that is off limits in alcoholic, binge drinking, drunk as hell Wississippi!
@Jo, sorry, “by focusing on more harmful substances…” is what I meant to type.
DUMP WALKER 2018! LEGALIZE CANNABIS!!
About half of the U.S. population has tried cannabis, at least 15% use it regularly, over 80% of high school seniors have reported cannabis “easy to get” for decades. Those who really want to use cannabis heavily already are. Prohibition does little or nothing to prevent problematic use. In many cases prohibition makes cannabis usage problematic where it would not have been otherwise, be it light, moderate, or heavy usage. The main thing that cannabis prohibition successfully prohibits is effective regulation.
A few issues created by prohibition: there are no quality controls to reduce contaminants (harmful pesticides, molds, fungus, other drugs), there is no practical way to prevent underage sales, billions in tax revenue are lost which can be used for all substance abuse treatment, underground markets for all drugs are empowered as a far more popular substance is placed within them expanding their reach and increasing their profits, criminal records make pursuing many decent careers difficult, public mistrust and disrespect for our legal system, police, and government is increased, which can be devastating.
Prohibition is also very expensive, though, a cash cow for a number of powerful groups such as those related to law enforcement and the prison industry. These organizations have powerful lobbies and influence that perpetuate a failed drug policy through ignorance, fear, disinformation and misinformation. This ensures an endless supply of lucrative contracts and grants from the government, to support their salaries, tools of the trade, and other expenses. Cash, property and other assets from civil forfeiture laws also significantly fatten their coffers while often violating civil rights.
Those who wish to live in a free society must accept that this means freedom for all people of that society, not only for certain groups and the activities they happen to enjoy. Obviously in some cases there are extreme circumstances that warrant intervention with criminal law. In the case of mind-altering drugs we have already set this precedent with alcohol. Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol to the consumer and especially to others. If we are to have justice, then the penalties for using, possessing and selling cannabis should be no worse than those of alcohol.
First of all cannabis is an herb, not a weed! So the prohibitionists don’t even use the correct botanical term. An herb is any plant that has medicinal or culinary usage. Cannabis has been used for both for thousands of years! Secondly, back home in Seattle (where cannabis is legal for responsible adult use) when some far right wing republican’s tried to put up an anti-cannabis billboard the state told them to stop lying and rightly made them take it down. Wisconsin could learn a whole lot from Washington State.
Stop the lies and legalize!
Write your representatives today!
DUMP WALKER AND THE GOP in 2018!! (GOP=Gross Old Pedophiles)
Lovely: More proof that the Potheads are on this site are wacky from Cannabis. They accept as gospel, this article from someone without any experience, degrees, abilities, knowledge. So man holes will take week to nail. every oen.
Anyway:
Wikipedia: DEA: 2008 Pot Sourcebook. “Research support the gateway idea. Social contact and the interest in searching for better high”.Studies plus lots of research such as that 311 same sex twins only one smoked Pot'”before 17 the early Pot smokers were 5 times more likely to move on to harder drugs.
Fact tons of research that we have read the last 50 year, not counting hundreds of staff meetings.
there are tons of peer reviewed articles from real colleges that back this up. A few the other way from dopey studies.
Sorry “Bob” aka WCD, your fake right wing persona has been EXPOSED!! The Republican Party is the party of pedophiles, Neo-Nazis, racists and fascists! Wisconsin deserves better!
Dump Walker 2018! He’s been.mooching off the Big Government his entire life!
Don’t bother “debating” WCD, write and call your representatives instead!
LEGALIZE CANNABIS 2018!!
Wisconsin Conservative Digest: The study also said “The study noted that – besides a potential causal role of cannabis use – non shared environment factors could play a role in the association such as differing peer affiliations that preceded the cannabis use”, ie, the twins could have had different friends, and other social circumstances. It seems quite convenient that this study did not adjust for this major confounder.
The gateway concept is frequently brought up. Over the years I have collected much information on the subject.
If prohibition has any effect in this regard, it makes cannabis a gateway to other illicit drugs.
The gateway drug theory, that a unique pharmacological effect of cannabis causes the use of hard drugs, has been discredited by the many peer reviewed studies which have examined it.[1,2,3,4,5,6,14,15,16,19,24]
If the gateway theory were to have any merit, then alcohol and tobacco would be the true gateway drugs as nearly all have tried these before cannabis.[1,6,23] There are many factors that determine which illicit substance will be used first, including availability and culture. In Japan, where cannabis use is not popular and largely frowned upon, 83% of illicit drug users did not use illicit cannabis first.[19] In the U.S., since cannabis is by far the most popular and available illegal recreational substance, it is unlikely that one would find many illicit hard drug users who did not encounter and use illicit cannabis first.[1] This does not mean that cannabis caused their hard drug use. Rather, it was their pre-existing interest in recreational substances combined with their willingness to try illicit substances and cannabis was simply, and predictably, the first encountered.[3,14,19]
On a related note, studies have shown that cannabinoids can help treat those addicted to hard drugs and alcohol, and that it is an “exit drug” for some.[4,7,18,22,25]
If anything, the prohibition of cannabis makes the hard drug problem worse. Once someone breaks the law to try the very popular and relatively safe drug cannabis, their reluctance to try another illegal substance diminishes. This is both because of their newly increased doubts of government honesty regarding the harmful effects of those substances as well, and their newly reduced respect for laws against drugs in general. Cannabis prohibition also connects cannabis consumers to the hard drug market. Imagine if beer merchants also sold heroin, cocaine and meth. This is the situation that the prohibition of cannabis creates for its consumers. It places a very popular substance into these otherwise unpopular markets, strengthening them and expanding their reach. Also, with no legal avenue to resolve disputes, cannabis prohibition increases the crime associated with these markets.
Efforts to prevent hard drug abuse are undermined and resources misspent when gateway theory is accepted as valid. A recent extensive review on the subject concluded that: “The promotion of the erroneous gateway theory ultimately does the public a disservice, including the hindering of intervention.”[19]
Regardless, one major concern is that relaxed laws will lead to significantly increased teen usage, but this has not been the case.[20] Legalizing medical cannabis in the U.S. has not increased cannabis usage in teens.[8,9,10,11,21] Decriminalization does not result in increased cannabis consumption, for any age group, except for a small, temporary increase during the first few years.[12,13] Portugal eventually saw reduced adolescent cannabis use after decriminalizing all drugs in 2001.[17]
SOURCES:
1. Joy et al. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. Institute of Medicine. 1999.
2. Morral et al. Reassessing the marijuana gateway effect. Drug Policy Research Center, RAND. Addiction. 2002.
3. Cleveland HH & Wiebe RP. Understanding the association between adolescent marijuana use and later serious drug use: gateway effect or developmental trajectory? Dev Psychopathol. 2008.
4. O’Connell TJ & Bou-Matar CB. Long term marijuana users seeking medical cannabis in California (2001–2007): demographics, social characteristics, patterns of cannabis and other drug use of 4117 applicants. Harm Reduction Journal. 2007.
5. Wen et al. The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on Marijuana, Alcohol, and Hard Drug Use. The National Bureau of Economic Research. 2014.
6. Tristan et al. Alcohol as a Gateway Drug: A Study of US 12th Graders. Journal of School Health. 2012.
7. Oliere et al. Modulation of the Endocannabinoid System: Vulnerability Factor and New Treatment Target for Stimulant Addiction. Front Psychiatry. 2013. Review.
8. Choo et al. The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Legislation on Adolescent Marijuana Use. Journal of Adolescent Health. 2014.
9. Lynne-Landsman et al. Effects of state medical marijuana laws on adolescent marijuana use. Am J Public Health. 2013.
10. Harper et al. Do medical marijuana laws increase marijuana use? Replication study and extension. Ann Epidemiol. 2012.
11. Anderson et al. Medical Marijuana Laws and Teen Marijuana Use. IZA 2012.
12. Williams J, Bretteville-Jensen AL. Does liberalizing cannabis laws increase cannabis use? J Health Econ. 2014.
13. Single EW. The impact of marijuana decriminalization: an update. J Public Health Policy. 1989.
14. Tarter et al. Predictors of Marijuana Use in Adolescents Before and After Licit Drug Use: Examination of the Gateway Hypothesis. The American Journal of Psychiatry. 2006.
15. Van Gundy K & Rebellon CJ. A Life-course Perspective on the “Gateway Hypothesis”. J Health Soc Behav. 2010.
16. Tarter et al. Predictors of marijuana use in adolescents before and after licit drug use: examination of the gateway hypothesis. Am J Psychiatry. 2006.
17. Hughes C E and Stevens A. What Can We Learn From The Portuguese Decriminalization of Illicit Drugs?. Brit J Criminol. 2010.
18. Reiman A. Cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs. Harm Reduct J. 2009.
19. Vanyukov et al. Common liability to addiction and “gateway hypothesis”: theoretical, empirical and evolutionary perspective. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2012. Review.
20. Simons-Morton et al. Cross-national comparison of adolescent drinking and cannabis use in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands. Int J Drug Policy. 2010.
21. Hasin et al. Medical marijuana laws and adolescent marijuana use in the USA from 1991 to 2014: results from annual, repeated cross-sectional surveys. The Lancet. 2015.
22. Bisaga et al. The effects of dronabinol during detoxification and the initiation of treatment with extended release naltrexone. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2015.
23. Barry et al. Prioritizing Alcohol Prevention: Establishing Alcohol as the Gateway Drug and Linking Age of First Drink With Illicit Drug Use. J Sch Health. 2016.
24. Degenhardt et al. Evaluating the drug use “gateway” theory using cross-national data: consistency and associations of the order of initiation of drug use among participants in the WHO World Mental Health Surveys. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2010.
25. Walsh Z et al. Medical cannabis and mental health: A guided systematic review. Clin Psychol Rev. 2017. Review.
OK Genius, there are tons of studies done by the pro Pot groups, mostly worthless. Stats do not lie but liars who make lots of money on Pot do.
The DEA studies and those done by legit Hospitals, Universities show it is Gateway.
But suppose Pot is neutral? The with Rx’s for Opioids going down the last 7 years but Pot smoking way up. Why have heroin overdoses, hundreds of thousands, all people do not die but deaths are way up ten fold?
DUI, drug deaths are way up as much as 35% of DUIs are are now pot. Finally the morgues are not only filled but also the Rehab places and their charts all have pot on them.
Watch the Chet Baker film and get a really good idea what is happening. Read the WSJournal today and realize that this person started on Pot.
The anti-cannabis legalization sentiment among some law enforcement personnel (police, district attorneys, etc) is not surprising. When asked why so many police organizations are lobbying against marijuana law reform, retired Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Stephen Downing said:
“It’s money. In many states, the city government expects police to make seizures, and they expect these seizures to supplement their budgets.”
“The only difference now compared to the times of alcohol prohibition is that, in the times of alcohol prohibition, law enforcement—the police and judges—got their money in brown paper bags. Today, they get their money through legitimate, systematic programs run by the federal government. That’s why they’re using their lobbying organizations to fight every reform.”
Legalizing cannabis would greatly cut into their income, be it from cash seizures, asset forfeitures, federal grants, etc. It would also take away a common excuse to do a warrantless search. Many cops try to justify their anti-cannabis stance by falling for the rampant, unfounded anti-cannabis propaganda that continues to plague this nation.
If you would like to hear what honest, knowledgeable, reasonable cops have to say about the drug war in general, please visit:
LEAP – Law Enforcement Action Partnership – http://www.leap.cc/ – ‘Cops Say Legalize’
“LEAP envisions a world in which drug policies work for the benefit of society and keep our communities safer. A system of legalization and regulation will end the violence, better protect human rights, safeguard our children, reduce crime and disease, treat drug abusers as patients, reduce addiction, use tax dollars more efficiently, and restore the public’s respect and trust in law enforcement.”
“LEAP’s goals are: (1) To educate the public, the media and policy makers about the failure of current drug policy by presenting a true picture of the history, causes and effects of drug use and the elevated crime rates more properly related to drug prohibition than to drug pharmacology and (2) To restore the public’s respect for police, which has been greatly diminished by law enforcements involvement in imposing drug prohibition.”
The Lead group in the Milwaukee area knows how bad an idea that this is. Fact is that most professionals that work around this on daily basis are opposed, I have worked with them daily.
Devon: That is really funny. Fact is that they know the more pot, the more DUI’s and the more overdose deaths and more crime.
There has never been a medically documented case of fatal cannabis overdose in all of medical history. [Calabria et al. 2010; Koppel et al. 2014]
“No direct fatalities (overdoses) have been attributed to marijuana, even in recreational users of increasingly potent marijuana, possibly because of the lack of endocannabinoid receptors in the brainstem.” [Koppel et al. 2014]
It is well established that the “safety ratio” of cannabis is unusually high, well over 1000:1 (compared to about 15:1 for acetaminophen (Tylenol), 10:1 for alcohol, 6:1 for heroin [Gable. 2004.]) .
-Calabria et al. Does cannabis use increase the risk of death? Systematic review of epidemiological evidence on adverse effects of cannabis use. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2010. Review.
-Gable RS. Comparison of acute lethal toxicity of commonly abused psychoactive substances. Addiction. 2004. Review.
-Koppel et al. Systematic review: efficacy and safety of medical marijuana in selected neurologic disorders: report of the Guideline Development Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Neurology. 2014. Review.
Heroin – 6:1
Meth – 10:1
Alcohol – 10:1
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) – 15:1
Cocaine – 15:1
MDMA – 16:1
Cannabis – >1,000:1
[SOURCE: Gable RS. Comparison of acute lethal toxicity of commonly abused psychoactive substances. Addiction. 2004. Review.]
Despite cash only transactions, this federally funded NIH (who are anything but cannabis friendly) study failed to find an association between medical cannabis dispensaries and crime:
“There were no observed cross-sectional associations between the density of medical marijuana dispensaries and either violent or property crime rates in this study.”
[Kepple NJ, Freisthler B. Exploring the ecological association between crime and medical marijuana dispensaries. J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2012.]
Violent crime has decreased in states that have legalized medical cannabis:
“Specifically, the results indicate approximately a 2.4 percent reduction in homicide and assault, respectively, for each additional year the law is in effect.”
“…state MML may be correlated with a reduction in homicide and assault rates, net of other covariates.”
“These findings run counter to arguments suggesting the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes poses a danger to public health in terms of exposure to violent crime and property crimes.”
[Morris et al. The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on Crime: Evidence from State Panel Data, 1990-2006. PLoS ONE. 2014]
This federally funded NIH (who may have a bias against cannabis) study did not find that cannabis itself causes violence:
“…our results do not indicate that early frequent marijuana use causes later violence. Rather, we conclude that frequent marijuana use and violence co-occur because they share common risk factors (e.g., race/ethnicity, hard drug use). It is important to keep in mind that marijuana has been used for centuries and is the most widely used illicit drug today and that the majority of marijuana users do not engage in violence (Boles & Miotto, 2003).”
“…the relationship between frequent marijuana use and violence (and vice versa) was spurious; it was no longer significant when common risk factors such as race/ethnicity and hard drug use were controlled for. We conclude that the marijuana-violence relationship is due to selection effects whereby these behaviors tend to co-occur in certain individuals, not because one behavior causes the other; rather, both are influenced by shared risk factors and/or an underlying tendency toward deviance.”
[Wei et al. Teasing Apart the Development Associations Between Alcohol and Marijuana Use and Violence. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. 2004]
This study found that the prohibition of cannabis leads to an association with crime, not cannabis use itself:
“However, when eliminating all types of drug-specific charges from our models, we no longer observed any significant association with cannabis use”
“However, the bulk of this involvement seems to be related to various types of drug-specific crime. Thus, the association seems to rest on the fact that use, possession and distribution of drugs such as cannabis is illegal. The study strengthens concerns about the laws relating to the use, possession and distribution of cannabis”
[Pedersen W, Skardhamar T. Cannabis and crime: findings from a longitudinal study. Addiction. 2010.]
Cannabis use does not increase odds of intimate partner violence, alcohol does:
“On any alcohol use days, heavy alcohol use days (5 or more standard drinks), and as the number of drinks increased on a given day, the odds of physical and sexual aggression perpetration increased. The odds of psychological aggression increased on heavy alcohol use days only. Marijuana use days did not increase the odds of any type of aggression.”
[Shorey et al. Acute alcohol use temporally increases the odds of male perpetrated dating violence: a 90-day diary analysis. Addict Behav. 2014.]
Cannabis use may actually reduce intimate partner violence:
“In fully adjusted models, we found that more frequent marijuana use by husbands and wives predicted less frequent IPV perpetration by husbands. Husbands’ marijuana use also predicted less frequent IPV perpetration by wives.”
[Smith et al. Couples’ Marijuana Use Is Inversely Related to Their Intimate Partner Violence Over the First 9 Years of Marriage. Psychol Addict Behav. 2014.]
However:
“Alcohol is a factor in 40% of all violent crimes.”
[National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.]
On a related note, some studies have shown cannabis use reduces alcohol consumption and dependence.
Cannabis kid overdose last week in Co.
Late nite.
since 2010 Rxs are down but overdoses exploding. why?
Thank you Devon! Your comments are spot on.
PS
WCD that baby you refered to, well the actual doctors that treated him are on record stating that cannabis was not the cause of death. Please retract your latest blatant lie. Thanks for letting me set the record straight. Your fake crazy old right wing nut job routine is brilliant and has done more to help end cannabis prohibition than a million advocates ever could. Keep up the good work!
Now to everyone else, write your representatives in Wisconsin and tell them to re-legalize, tax and regulate cannabis for responsible adult use!
As usual stupid people like Terry never do any research. Google Colorado Pot deaths and there are pages of them all from newspapers and everything else. Pot brownies and kids have been real bad.
Google nationwide and you get far mroe. Pot heads screw up ther lives.
“Let them pass all their dirty remarks…”
Name calling won’t change the truth or anyone’s hearts or minds Bob. You need to stop dehumanizing people. You have far too much hate, bitterness and anger in your heart. I don’t need to google anything. I have lived in a legal cannabis state. I have seen the failures of prohibition first hand and the many positive outcomes of legalization.
LEGALIZE IT!!
Everyone ignore the Pot heads, addicts, drunks to solve this problem. What people like Terry want is what is destroying peoples lives.
It is your job to find out yourself. There are tons of studies contrary to what this article says. The studies done by Legit magazines, hospitals, Universities, are pretty solid against recreational drugs.
There is tons of stuff/studies. The Google Pot deaths, Pot deaths in Colorado, Pot deaths/DUIs and you will get ear full.
Add up all the deaths from overdoses, DUI deaths, long term deaths and this year the total from recreational drugs will top 100,000, mostly women who metabolize drugs differently. If you hate women then you will ignore my entreaties. Women are smaller. Do we want this to continue? According to dopey Pot heads like, those on this page, that is what we will get.
The opinions of addicts, drunks, Pothead do not count. They lie , steal, all the time.
No, it is your job to provide evidence to back up your claims. If the evidence is so overwhelming, it should be rather easy to provide a link or at least a title and date to some of these studies and stories. But, no, instead we get the same insults and unsubstantiated claims.
Nope. 100% wrong Bob. It is you and other prohibitionist’s hated and wickedness that have been destroying inncocent lives for decades and everyone knows it. Thank God you are old and will soon be dead and buried so the rest of us can finally be free from all your lies, hate, anger and bitterness! Time is on OUR side old man! Any which way you look at it, You lose!
LEGALIZE IT!
WRITE YOUR REPRESRNTATIVES PEOPLE!
So it’s okay for WCD aka Bob to personally insult everyone on this board, repeatedly, including calling me “stupid” several times? Hhhmmm? Wow that’s pretty lame Urban Milwaukee. I’ve been a loyal reader for many years but I am done Urban Milwaukee. Goodbye and Good Riddance to you, Bob and all his lying and vile hate filled rants. You just lost another reader.
Legalize it!
Legalizing Pot is a death sentence to so many of our young women. it is bad enough now when it is semi legal.
Watching this meltdown of WCD these past couple days has been something else. He’s the online version of the “Stay off my lawn” guy.
Meltdown? we ar just picking up steam putting together state wide group to fight the nuts on this site. if people look at the credentials and the basis of the people on this site and this article plus having to go get the ,biggest proponents with tons of Pro Pot propaganda is not even fight. They need more people
Put it in English, Bob.
Wall Street Journal 12/9: Just one of the thousands of stories across the country as the Recreational drug/Pot epidemic is killing our kids;
Devin Glenn overdoses in his room.
Devin’s mother: Devin, a brawny 6-4 230 pounds had seemed fine.
age 23. “He drank sure, smoked pot, she said-but heroin???
How long had he been using heroin?”
He was in the morgue, piled up with all the rest of our youth, mainly young girls . We have two daughters. Cannot imagine the pain if we had found them in their rooms; dead.
These stories daily, in the news across the country but the junkies, Pot heads, drugees do not care, especially on this site as long as they get their Pot. Just cutesy little comments and quoting anecdotes and studies put together to push drugs.
Those of you tha tare not junkies, Pot ehads pay attention to what is ahppening. read the cutesy pie commetns and teh complete lack of interst in the feaths of these kifds.
How do we stopthsi epidiemc? it is up to us to fin the answer casye one htign you willfind is that the junikies, drunks, Poth ead do ntohign but lie, cheat, steal all the tiem to get drugs.90$ of the criem in the Metro area goes rigth back to the,
Typing not done:
Those of you that are not junkies, Pot heads, pay attention to what is happening. Read the cutesy pie comments and the complete lack of interest in the deaths of these kids.
How do we stop this epidemic? Legalize more drugs and increase the numbers of kids smoking? A large percent will go on to use hard drugs, then to the morgue.
It is up to us to find the answers, cause one thing you will find is that the Junkies, drunks, Potheads do nothing but lie, cheat and steal, all the time to get drugs.
90% of the crime in the Metro area goes right back to the drugs. Inner city runs on drugs and welfare. No one has a plan to fix it, or the schools.
Left runs everything into the ground.
Great, my comments are back up so I am BACK! If name calling and insults are all idiots like WCD want to hurl then it’s time to take the gloves off!
Oh no everyone, old timey dinosaur WCD is putting down his geritol smoothie, taking his lap blanket off and is getting together with a gaggle of other dementia addled drooling geriatrics in diapers in a vacuous attempt to start an anti-cannabis group. The horror, the horror…drug dealers and cartels are celebrating in Wisconsin tonight thanks to inbred idiots like Bob “WCD” Dohnal working overtime to keep them in business. Good work moron!
In regard to opioids, the use of cannabis in managing pain is one of the most important.
4 out of 5 heroin users begin with prescription opioids [Lankenau et al. 2012]. The reason is very simple, heroin and opioids such as hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet), are very similar drugs. When prescriptions run out, people turn to far less expensive, more available, more potent heroin from the street to support their habit.
Removing cannabis from our pharmacopeia 7 decades ago may have resulted in thousands of opioid deaths:
“From a pharmacological perspective, cannabinoids are considerably safer than opioids and have broad applicability in palliative care. Had cannabis not been removed from our pharmacopeia 7 decades ago and remained available to treat chronic pain, potentially thousands of lives that have been lost to opioid toxicity could have been prevented.”
“The medicinal cannabis user should not be considered a criminal in any state and the DEA and our legal system should be using science and logic as the basis of policy making rather than political or societal bias.” [Carter et al. 2011]
Legal medical cannabis has been shown to significantly reduce deaths from prescription opioid painkillers by reducing opioid use:
“States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate compared with states without medical cannabis laws.” [Bachhuber et al. 2014]
Two of the main reasons people switch to cannabis: less side-effects and less withdrawal:
“Over 41% state that they use cannabis as a substitute for alcohol, 36.1% use cannabis as a substitute for illicit substances, and 67.8% use cannabis as a substitute for prescription drugs. The three main reasons cited for cannabis-related substitution are ‘less withdrawal’ (67.7%), ‘fewer side-effects’ (60.4%), and ‘better symptom management’ suggesting that many patients may have already identified cannabis as an effective and potentially safer adjunct or alternative to their prescription drug regimen.” [Lucas et al. 2013]
Denying people medicine like this should be a criminal act, instead using it is. What a bizarre situation politicians have created.
SOURCES:
-Bachhuber et al. Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999-2010. JAMA Intern Med. 2014
-Carter et al. Cannabis in palliative medicine: improving care and reducing opioid-related morbidity. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2011
-Lankenau et al. Initiation into prescription opioid misuse amongst young injection drug users. Int J Drug Policy. 2012
-Lucas et al. Cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs: A dispensary-based survey of substitution effect in Canadian medical cannabis patients. Addiction Research & Theory. 2013
There is no medical indication for cannabis for pain. Anecdotes are meaningless . If there is need for more pain meds then isolate the active ingredient and go through FDA process, then market it.
The only drug from marijuana is Marinol a worthless drug for nausea.
This is irrelevant to the problem of Pot users mostly young women and kids that have had reason for a pain Rx try pot in peer sessions then go on to heroin.
This is the reason we have an epidemic cause the Rx’s for pain have leveled off 7 years ago, while overdoses, deaths, DUI’s and crime have risen.
A review in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that there is high-quality evidence supporting the use of cannabis in treating pain and spasticity:
“Use of marijuana for chronic pain, neuropathic pain, and spasticity due to multiple sclerosis is supported by high-quality evidence”
[Hill K. Medical Marijuana for Treatment of Chronic Pain and Other Medical and Psychiatric Problems. A Clinical Review. JAMA. 2015. Review.]
“The treatment of chronic pain with medicinal cannabis in this open-label, prospective cohort resulted in improved pain and functional outcomes, and significant reduction in opioid use.”
[Haroutounian et al. The Effect of Medicinal Cannabis on Pain and Quality of Life Outcomes in Chronic Pain: A Prospective Open-label Study. Clin J Pain. 2016]
“Four trials examined smoked cannabis as compared with placebo. All examined populations with neuropathic pain and two involved neuropathic pain in HIV neuropathy. All four trials found a positive effect with no serious adverse effects.”
“There were no serious adverse events. Drug related adverse effects were generally described as well tolerated, transient or mild to moderate and most commonly consisted of sedation, dizziness, dry mouth, nausea and disturbances in concentration.”
“In conclusion this systematic review of 18 recent good quality randomized trials demonstrates that cannabinoids are a modestly effective and safe treatment option for chronic non-cancer (predominantly neuropathic) pain.”
[Lynch ME, Campbell F. Cannabinoids for treatment of chronic non-cancer pain; a systematic review of randomized trials. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2011. Review.]
It’s amusing reading WCD’s flailing rebuttals, especially with the misspellings, improper punctuation, and general poor grasp of the English language. And he’s a pharmacist? Wow. Typical ancient GOP dinosaur gasping his last breaths as he sinks into the tar pit.
This just in!
Following Legalization Teen Drug Use Down in Colorado
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/11/following-marijuana-legalization-teen-drug-use-is-down-in-colorado/#ampshare=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/11/following-marijuana-legalization-teen-drug-use-is-down-in-colorado
It’s called reality WCD. Stupid drooling half-wits like old lying Bob “WCD” Dohnal just can’t accept it. Yet reality all around you Bob whether you like it or not. You are mired in the Dark Ages of hate, fear and lies. No worries. We will all be here decades after you and your hateful ignorant lying generation are long gone and cannabis will be legal and people will have their basic civil rights. Now meditate on that stupid old man.
PS
Don’t forget to take your Centrum Silver before you start your new Nazi Prohibitionist group!
A Nonpartisan Federal Study just issued indicates that there has been a significant drop in teen drug use rates following cannabis legalization in Colorado. WCD aka Bob “dumb as bricks” Dohnal’s interpretation? “Well that’s just a biased report written by some pothead.”
You can’t fix stupid people and Bob “dumb as bricks” Dohnal is as stupid as they come.
Legalize it Wisconsin!
Dump Walker! Dump the GOP!
Colorado has been number one in the country for drug use for teens, now still 30% higher. DUI’s are up for drugs, crime is up, overdoses are way up cause people are moving from POT to Heroin. Is this one time study faulty? The states around have seen big increases in drug use cause kids/people coming in to get drugs.
Around the country overdose deaths, DUI’s, crime, like in Milwaukee have exploded, pushing Milwaukee into top ten most violent, with drug sales/use at the bottom of it.
Any study that shows a dramatic change has to be questioned cause all other figures are way up. In Wisconsin overdose deaths, overdoses are way up.
Fact is that the dumb people in this country are the drunks, Addicts and Potheads plus those that advocate killing more of our young kids, mostly young ladies.
Try getting job these days with everyone drug testing in this state.
Daily in the pharmacy I would get calls from people wanting to know how to clean out their system. Bad news is that Pot is fat soluble and stays in system, and with new tests can be found for months BYe Bye Jobs.
Not good companies like Microsoft and Google and many others. They don’t drug test because they know they know they’d lose all their best employees! Most successful cannabis users are entrepreneurs (I know, they are nonexistent in Wisconsin) or they work in creative fields for small businesses that would never drug test people either. Don’t you know that you dumb old man?Furthermore other people in industries that do test just use synthetic urine and whizinators and/or exercise regularly to stay lean so they have no fat in which THC is stored then drink a lot of water and they pass any drug test anytime, no problem! Don’t you know that? God you are DUMB! It’s just like alcohol prohibition, (you are old enough to remember that) people are going to do what they want to do regardless of what you, the Big Government, some corporation or any other Nanny State control freak wants! Stop trying to Lord over other people’s lives. You are not the boss nor are you the judge and you can’t stop people from doing what they want or from being free. Focus on your own failings, I can assure you there are many! Now even further yet once we end cannabis prohibition we will have created 18,000 new jobs in the industry and nobody tests in the cannabis industry anyways!
In any regard, only an obsequious toady like WCD would submit to a urine test to judge whether they are competent to do their job rather than judging them by, you know, their actual on the job performance and competency. Wow, what a concept! What someone does in their own home on their own time is their own business, not the Big Government’s, not some corporation’s and certainly not some low IQ Nanny State control freak like Wisconsin Conservative Digest aka “dumb as bricks” Bob. Don’t you know that? It’s called “freedom” moron, look into it!
Either way, with 96% of Americans in favor of medical cannabis and 70% now in favor of full legalization for responsible adult use, you are fighting for a lost cause. Legalize it!
As usual, no response to the actual federal study proving teen use is down in Colorado, the stupid old fool just ignores it and goes right back to lying like the dumb old idiot he is. Sad, sad pathetic old man.