While legislators debate the details of NJ marijuana legalization, the black market is bigger than ever. we spent a night at a marijuana "pop-up" and saw chocolate bars and brownies, oils and vape cartridges and huge jars of illegal weed.
Read MoreStay in the know with the latest on our fight against the legalization of marijuana
Have an article that you would like us to post? Share it on our Facebook page!
Promises about legal weed benefits are false→
/
In California, voters were sold the line that the state could collect upwards of $1 billion in revenue. The reality is the state has failed to bring in anywhere close to that mark — it fell 75 percent short of it through September. All this prompted outgoing California Gov. Jerry Brown to say, “I have not counted on any revenue from marijuana. Who’s counting on the marijuana revenue? People said that to make it more plausible for voters.”
So what’s the issue? It appears the black market is nimbler than anyone thought. In fact, it's growing stronger. One in five marijuana users in the state continue to purchase the drug off the street as opposed to buying it from retail stores. The situation is so bad that foreign cartels and criminal gangs are turning whole neighborhoods into pot-growing operations and even growing the drug on national lands.
And yet Big Marijuana — whose components now include Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco — keep claiming they can end the illicit trade of the drug through “regulation.”
Read MoreMarijuana Is More Dangerous Than You Think→
/
As legalization spreads, more Americans are becoming heavy users of cannabis, despite its links to violence and mental illness
Read MoreWhat Advocates of Legalizing Pot Don’t Want You to Know→
/
With large studies in peer-reviewed journals showing that marijuana increases the risk of psychosis and schizophrenia, the scientific literature around the drug is far more negative than it was 20 years ago.
Read MoreFor every dollar gained in tax revenue, Coloradans spent approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization→
/
The costs associated with commercial marijuana are only going to go up as the long-term health consequences have not been fully determined. Like tobacco, commercial marijuana is likely to have health consequences that we won’t be able to determine for decades. Those costs are not configured in this report.
Read MoreArguments for Marijuana Legalization are Lies
/
Lies were used to fool voters in states where marijuana “medicalization” or legalization was on the ballot and the lies continue to be foisted on the public for political power and money. Let me identify and answer a few of the lies.
Read MoreMarijuana: Big Tobacco 2.0→
/
As was the case with smoking tobacco, smoking marijuana is said to prove you’re sociable, hip, and modern.
As with tobacco, marijuana is portrayed not only as largely harmless, but as objectively good for you, with a credible function as self-medication for all sorts of ailments.
As with tobacco, marijuana is presented as a signifier of individual liberty and self-empowerment.
As with critics of tobacco, critics of marijuana are cast as petty tyrants trampling on freedom while peddling hysterical junk science.
And as with the tobacco industry, a cash-flush marijuana industry is eager to use its wealth to slant scientific study and political debate, lest its flattering claims begin to sire organized suspicion.
Read MoreForeign cartels embrace home-grown marijuana in pot-legal states→
/
Foreign gangs are finding that black-market marijuana is profitable even in states that have legalized cannabis.
Read MoreThe poison pills contained in Prop 64
/
Despite promises that legalizing marijuana would kill the black market and tax revenues would fill state and local coffers. The black market is thriving, and the promised taxes are not being seen. The industry’s solution: they’re about to pass a bill to reduced excise tax on marijuana products from 15% to 11% and suspend the tax on marijuana cultivation (until Jun 1, 2021). This should only come as a surprise to people who failed to read the text of Prop 64 where it says tax can be cut all the way to zero to ensure the industry is thriving.
Read MoreWhy America will regret legalizing marijuana→
/
Chuck Schumer is trotting out old canards about how cannabis "doesn't hurt anybody else." Hearing him tout the virtues of legalization in Colorado and Washington ("lots of good and no harm!"), one is reminded of Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company that spent years (and millions) telling doctors that opioids weren't seriously addictive when prescribed to pain patients. It's stunning that educated people ever believed this, but many did. Today, many are equally anxious to believe that legal pot probably has little to do with Colorado's sharp increase in auto accidents. And there are homeless people everywhere, right? Correlation doesn't equal causation.
Read MoreThe New Era of Cannabis→
/
Reflections from the trenches of a recent statewide debate on legal marijuana.
Read MoreMarijuana Legalization – The problems continue to pile up and California isn’t prepared
/Marijuana commercialization and the problems associated with it continue to ramp up in California and elsewhere. “Legal” marijuana is only supposed to come from “permitted”, “regulated” grows that have “tested” marijuana. None of that has been realized and likely never will be.
Read MoreA Pharmacist Makes the Case Against Legalizing Marijuana→
/
FDA has complete jurisdiction over the production, distribution, and sale of all drugs and medical devices in the United States. ATF has jurisdiction over alcohol and tobacco products nationwide.Creating a special exception for marijuana is dangerous and totally illogical.
Read MoreCanadian doctors group warns about the adverse effects of medicinal marijuana
/
There is little to no research to support the supposed benefits of medical cannabis, and what evidence exists suggests that using marijuana as medicine may do more harm than good, family doctors’ associations across Canada are telling their members.
Read MoreWhat voters really mean when they say they support marijuana legalization→
/
Given more options from which to choose, respondents’ support for legalization dropped by a third, from 60 percent to 40 percent. Apparently, some of the poll respondents who had previously expressed support for legalization assumed they were being asked about the legality of medical marijuana or of personal marijuana possession. The “60 percent support” was thus actually a mix of people who supported legalization and those who opposed it but wanted marijuana to be accessible to severely ill people, opposed criminal penalties for personal consumption, or both.
Read MoreWho is really in Prison for Marijuana?
/
Many of those in prison for marijuana entered a guilty plea to a marijuana charge to avoid a more serious charge. In the US, just 1.6 percent of the state inmate population were held for offenses involving only marijuana, and less than one percent of all state prisoners (0.7 percent) were incarcerated with marijuana possession as the only charge.
Read MoreAs legalization of pot ramps up in California what should citizens be considering?
/
The “medipot” industry has been lawless. Those willing to break the law are not likely to obey new, weak and unenforced regulations. Local law enforcement throughout the state, including our own Chief Zimmerman pled for banning commercial pot drug dealing operations. Most jurisdictions in the state have listened. Sadly several cities, including San Diego City, have not.
Read MoreFive years later, Colorado sees toll of pot legalization→
/
Last week marked the fifth anniversary of Colorado's decision to sanction the world's first anything-goes commercial pot trade.
Five years later, we remain an embarrassing cautionary tale.
Read MoreBlowing Smoke: The Real Facts About Marijuana
/The pot industry has many lies and half truths that are recycled again and again. It is time to take them on point by point.
Read MoreGet Out Your Checkbook: What Legalized Marijuana is Going to Cost→
/
With such overwhelming support, one could assume that legalization has clear benefits for everyone. That assumption is not only costly, it could prove to be dead wrong.
Read More