LETTER: Don’t legalize drug that numbs brains, causes drugged driving

To Ozaukee Press:

Over the past several years I’ve collected articles from magazines and local papers relating to marijuana dangers. Some are traffic violations of impaired drivers, such as speeding, stop sign violations, running off the road and driving on the wrong side of the road. But many are more serious and in some cases lead to death and critical injuries.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that drugged driving has surpassed drunken driving. In Ozaukee County, an impaired driver drove over a curb at the Strawberry Festival in Cedarburg in 2016 injuring pedestrians and an impaired driver imbedded his vehicle in the second floor bedroom in a house in Newburg.

Alex Berenson, author of “Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence,” learned from the National Academy of Medicine that use is likely to increase the incidence of schizophrenia and other psychosis and teenagers who smoke it are about three times more likely to develop schizophrenia.

A few years ago a scientific publication by the New England Journal of Medicine reported that marijuana use is related to motor vehicle accidents, diminished lifetime achievement, chronic bronchitis, drug addiction, progressive use of other drugs, depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.

The effects of long term and heavy use during adolescence is associated with altered brain development, poor educational outcome, addiction, cognitive impairment and diminished achievement.

A January 2018 paper published in the American Journal of Psychiatry stated that people who used marijuana in 2001 were almost three times as likely to use opiates three years later.

Since legalization, Colorado’s youth usage is 74% higher than the national average.

For medical uses, THC, marijuana’s active ingredient has been shown to work in a few narrow instances.

Advocates for cannabis use have acknowledged that they have always viewed medical marijuana laws to protect recreational users.

A 2012 published in “Drug and Alcohol Review” showed that the demographic group in the state of California most likely to have medical marijuana cards is 18-24 year old males.

Growing marijuana can also damage the environment, requiring large amounts of water per day. The 50,000 grow sites in California have drained streams and destroyed eco systems.

The poisons, pesticides and fertilizers associated with growing it are killing wildlife.

This drug impacts law enforcement, physical health, mental illness, homelessness, education, welfare, safety, traffic accidents and much more.

Do we really want a country filled with people whose brains are numbed and damaged when it can be prevented?

Bernice Haupt
Grafton