The Myths of Marijuana

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Myth: “No one gets hurt from Marijuana”

In fact, the reality is:

26.9% of seriously injured drivers test positive for marijuana and 20% of all vehicle crashes are attributed to drugged driving.

Myth: “No one gets sick or dies from smoking marijuana”.

In fact, the reality is:

  • 290,563 emergency department visits involved marijuana, the second leading drug cause, surpassing heroin, for an ER visit. (DAWN 2006).
  • Emergency department mentions of the drug among 12- to 17-year old’s jumped 48 percent since 1999. Especially troubling is the possibility that this rise in teen emergency department mentions is related to the increased potency of the drug. (CASA 2008)
  • Of the 53,481 alcohol-related ED (emergency room) visits by patients aged 12 to 20 where alcohol was combined with another drug, 69 percent involved an illicit drug. Marijuana was involved 47% of these cases. (DAWN 2006-2)
  • Marijuana use accounted for 87,150 emergency-room admissions, up 455 percent from a decade earlier. 40,000 of these came from young people aged 12-25 years old. (DAWN 1999)
  • To investigate the relationship between marijuana use prior to driving, habitual marijuana use and car crash injury, this population-based case–control study suggests that habitual marijuana use is associated with a 10-fold increase in the risk of car crash injury. The relationship between both habitual and acute marijuana use and car crashes is complex and is likely to be related to other risktaking behaviours, particularly risky driving. (GEORGE 2004)

Myth: “The push for marijuana legalization is a movement organized by concerned Californians”

In fact, the reality is:
Who is Behind Legalization?

In 1996 Proposition 215 was a hoax under the guise of compassion for the seriously ill. Three out-of-state billionaires funded it. (source)

“We are trying to get marijuana reclassified medically. If we do that, we’ll be using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name. That’s our way of getting to them (New Right) indirectly.”

NORML Chairman Keith Stroup
The Emory Wheel, Emory University

“The key to it [legalization] is medical access because once you have hundreds of thousands of people using marijuana medically under medical supervision the whole scam is going to be blown…Once there’s medical access and if we continue to do what we have to do-and we will-then we’ll get full legalization.”

Richard ‘Dick’ Cowen
National Director of NORML
While at a conference celebrating the anniversary of LSD