Category Archives: Legislative Issues

Drug Legalization

Ten Talking Points about the Cannabis Debate

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SAM MN (OCTOBER 2019)

1. Cannabis is NOT a safe drug.
a. Cannabis is NOT a harmless drug; the part of the plant that gets you high, THC, is addictive (between 9% to 30% may develop a cannabis use disorder), and the THC potency these days is much stronger than in the past.
b. THC contributes to many health problems (e.g., mental illness, learning and memory impairment and impaired driving)
c. We have enough problems already with the two legal “recreational” drugs (nicotine and alcohol); adding a third legal intoxicant is a bad idea.

2. Cannabis may or may not be a medicine that helps Vets (or non-Vets).
a. It is too early to say if the marijuana plant is effective medicine in treating pain or PTSD, although there are many studies underway.
b. Current research showed insufficient evidence to draw conclusions about the benefits and harms. One study showed it was significantly associated with worse outcomes for PTSD.
c. Smoking marijuana is not medicine. d. MN has a medical marijuana program that could be improved. We do not need to commercialize it to improve this program.

3. Marijuana does not replace opioids for pain
a. February 1, 2019 study showed low strength evidence that marijuana alleviated neuropathic pain and that marijuana as an efficacious treatment for opioid use was even weaker.
b. New study reverses finding of 2014 study and found an increase of 23% in opioid deaths

4. The state will not benefit from sizeable tax revenues.
a. Commercialization backers rarely discuss the costs associated with widespread use of the drug on health care, mental health services, law enforcement, businesses and consumers.
i. Estimated health and social costs per dollar of tax revenue
1. Alcohol $13
2. Tobacco $9
3. Estimated marijuana $4.5
b. California’s pot-related tax revenue missed projections by more than 50 percent, and the former governor of Colorado has said tax revenue from pot won’t solve fiscal challenges faced by states and municipalities.

5. Adolescent use will likely increase because the minimum legal age will be 21.
a. The US Surgeon General just stated “No amount of marijuana use during pregnancy or adolescence is known to be safe.”
b. Recent data indicate an overall higher rate of underage cannabis use in commercial cannabis states vs non-commercial cannabis states.
c. If history is informative, the rate of drug use by adolescents eventually increases if that drug becomes more accessible.
d. How is the minimum legal age of 21 for alcohol working?

6. Cannabis users have been unjustly punished by law enforcement.
a. Commercializing cannabis has not resolved social injustice issues. African Americans are twice as likely to be arrested for marijuana in commercialization states of Colorado and Washington. Denver: cannabis stores are clustered in minority neighborhoods, similar to liquor stores in low income areas.
b. Minnesota: Possession of less than 1 ½ ounces is a petty misdemeanor.
c. A very small percent of Minnesotans are incarcerated for cannabis use, and many of those had prior felony convictions.
d. We support decriminalization not commercialization

7. The black Market will not be eliminated.
a. The opposite is occurring in legalization states. In 2018 CA grew 15 million pounds of pot but only sold 2.5 million.
b. The black market is expanding as they undercut the retail price.

8. Cannabis is not commonly used.
a. Most Minnesotans older than 25 do not use cannabis (~11% report prior year use); the majority of users are in the 18-25year-old range (~37% report prior year use).
b. These MN rates are similar to the national average.

9. Legalization is not necessarily inevitable.
a. 10 states in the past two years have applied the brakes to full legalization efforts (CT, FL, MN, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NY, WI, VT).
b. What does legalization mean? When poll questions are properly asked, only about one-third of Americans favor full, commercial legalization.

10. Prohibition was not a failed policy.
a. Governments legislate all kinds of “prohibitions” in the name of public health and public safety and they work (e.g., indoor smoking restrictions)
b. The prohibition on alcohol decreased liver disease, domestic abuse and public drunkenness
c. We have enough problems with the two legal recreational drugs – nicotine and alcohol. We do not need another one added to the legal list. d. Should we lift the prohibition on all illicit drugs?

References

  1. www.nationalacademies.org/cannabishealtheffects
  2. Volkow, N. D., Swanson, J. M., Evins, A. E., DeLisi, L. E., Meier, M. H., Gonzalez, R., … & Baler, R. (2016). Effects of cannabis use on human behavior, including cognition, motivation, and psychosis: A review. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(3), 292-297.
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28806794
  4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6258013/
  5. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/26/12624
  6. https://learnaboutsam.org
  7. https://learnaboutsam.org Costs
  8. http://alcohol-psr.changelabsolutions.org/alcohol-psr-faqs/alcohol-taxes-faq/alcohol-tax-revenues-social-and-health-costsgovernment-expenditures/#sec3q7
  9. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141210121403.htm and https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/economics/econ_facts/index.htm
  10. https://learnaboutsam.org/new-report-cost-of-marijuana-legalization-far-outweighs-tax-revenues/
  11. https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/addiction-and-substance-misuse/advisory-on-marijuana-use-anddeveloping-brain/index.html
  12. National Survey of Drug Use and Health. (2017). https://www.samhsa.gov/data/nsduh/reports-detailed-tables2017-NSDUH
  13. https://www.mjfactcheck.org/potency
  14. https://learnaboutsam.org Lessons Learned Social Justice
  15. MN Department of Corrections Fact Sheet: Drug Offenders in Prisons, 2018
  16. https://learnaboutsam.org Lessons Learned Black Market
  17. National Survey of Drug Use and Health. (2017). https://www.samhsa.gov/data/nsduh/reports-detailed-tables2017-NSDUH 18 https://learnaboutsam.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ECP_SAM_National_Poll_20190218-2.pdf
Drug Legalization

Marijuana prison stats

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Despite the false narrative being pushed by Representative Winkler, here are the real facts from our own Minnesota Department of Corrections:

Out of 10,114 people in prison ONLY 50 people are there for marijuana and 70 % of those have prior felony convictions.

Remember: Minnesota decriminalized marijuana possession many years ago; only sales and possession of large amounts remains a felony!

Fact sheet: MN DOC – Drug Offenders

Fact sheet: Cost of legalization in Colorado

Fact sheet: ONDCP “Who’s really in prison for marijuana?”

Drug Information, Drug Legalization, Legislative Issues, Public

Op Ed in Denver Post

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By BOB TROYER | Guest Commentary
September 28, 2018 at 4:51 pm
In 2012 we were told Colorado would lead the nation on a grand experiment in commercialized marijuana. Six years later – with two major industry reports just released and the state legislature and Denver City Council about to consider more expansion measures – it’s a perfect time to pause and assess some results of that experiment.
Where has our breathless sprint into full-scale marijuana commercialization led Colorado?
Well, recent reports from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, from Denver Health, from Energy Associates, from the Colorado Department of Revenue and from the City of Denver should be enough to give everyone in this race pause.
Now Colorado’s youth use marijuana at a rate 85 percent higher than the national average. Now marijuana-related traffic fatalities are up by 151 percent. Now 70 percent of 400 licensed pot shops surveyed recommend that pregnant women use marijuana to treat morning sickness. Now an indoor marijuana grow consumes 17 times more power per square foot than an average residence. Now each of the approximately one million adult marijuana plants grown by licensed growers in Colorado consumes over 2.2 liters of water – per day. Now Colorado has issued over 40 little-publicized recalls of retail marijuana laced with pesticides and mold.
And now Colorado has a booming black market exploiting our permissive regulatory system – including Mexican cartel growers for that black market who use nerve-agent pesticides that are contaminating Colorado’s soil, waters, and wildlife. Marijuana commercialization has led Colorado to these places. It also has led to Colorado’s prominence in other states considering commercialization.
As the U.S. attorney leading other U.S. attorneys on marijuana issues, I have traveled the country and heard what people are saying about Colorado. Do they tout Colorado’s tax revenue from commercialized marijuana? No, because there’s been no net gain:  marijuana tax revenue adds less than one percent to Colorado’s coffers, which is more than washed out by the public health, public safety, and regulatory costs of commercialization.
Do they highlight commercialization’s elimination of a marijuana black market? No, because Colorado’s black market has actually exploded after commercialization: we have become a source-state, a theater of operation for sophisticated international drug trafficking and money laundering organizations from Cuba, China, Mexico, and elsewhere.
Do they promote our success in controlling production or containing marijuana within our borders?  No, because last year alone the regulated industry produced 6.4 metric tons of unaccounted-for marijuana, and over 80,000 black market plants were found on Colorado’s federal lands.
Does the industry trumpet its promised decrease in alcohol use? No, because Colorado’s alcohol consumption has steadily climbed since marijuana commercialization. How about the industry’s claim that marijuana will cure opioid addiction? No, a Lancet study found that heavy marijuana users end up with more pain and are more likely to abuse opioids.
Yet on that last point, the marijuana industry is trying to exploit our nation’s opioid tragedy to push its own controlled substance as a panacea. Why? It’s a profit opportunity.
Which is also how they see our youth. Which is why in Colorado they now sell marijuana-consumption devices that avoid detection at schools, like vape pens made to look like high-lighters and eye-liner.
These are the same marketers who advertise higher and higher potency marijuana gummi candy, marijuana suppositories, and marijuana “intimate creams.” This aggressive marketing makes perfect sense in addiction industries like tobacco, alcohol, opioids, and marijuana. These industries make the vast majority of their profits from heavy users, and so they strive to create and maintain this user market. Especially when users are young and their brains are most vulnerable to addiction.
I’m not sure the 55 percent of Coloradans who voted for commercialization in 2012 thought they were voting for all this.
These impacts are why you may start seeing U.S. attorneys shift toward criminally charging licensed marijuana businesses and their investors. After all, a U.S. attorney is responsible for public safety.
My office has always looked at marijuana solely through that lens, and that approach has not changed. But the public safety impacts of marijuana in Colorado have.
Now that federal enforcement has shot down marijuana grows on federal lands, the crosshairs may appropriately shift to the public harms caused by licensed businesses and their investors, particularly those who are not complying with state law or trying to use purported state compliance as a shield.
We should pause and catch our breath before racing off again at the industry’s urging. Let’s call it “just say know.” Let’s educate ourselves about the impacts of commercialization. Let’s reclaim our right as citizens to have a say in Colorado’s health, safety, and environment. Unfettered commercialization is not inevitable. You have a say.
Bob Troyer became the U.S. attorney for the District of Colorado in 2016 after working as first assistant U.S. attorney for six years.
https://learnaboutsam.org/