{"id":15934,"date":"2023-07-25T03:51:52","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T08:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15934"},"modified":"2023-07-25T03:51:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T08:51:57","slug":"marijuana-legalization-movement-linked-to-a-massive-increase-in-mental-illness-in-us-doctor-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15934","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana legalization movement linked to a ‘massive increase’ in mental illness in US, doctor warns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The push to legalize recreational marijuana<\/u><\/a> across the U.S. has been linked to a troubling rise in mental health issues, suicides and an increased risk for psychosis, <\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>but “money-hungry” cannabis investors are leading the charge to commercialize the drug nationwide, Dr. Kevin Sabet warned Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabet, a former White House drug policy adviser to Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton, highlighted the unintended consequences of legalizing the substance on “Sunday Night in America,” slamming the “addiction for-profit” pot industry for encouraging widespread drug usage to benefit their bottom line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STUDY LINKS CANNABIS ABUSE TO SCHIZOPHRENIA IN YOUNG MEN<\/strong><\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The net result hasn\u2019t been good at all. Marijuana is the most misunderstood drug in our country today, it is so much stronger than it used to be\u2026. this is a totally different drug,” Sabet told Fox News host Trey Gowdy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s been genetically bred to be much stronger than it ever has been. And It\u2019s been driven by a money-hungry addiction for profit industry that resembles really the worst of tobacco and alcohol. If you think about it, it gets you intoxicated like alcohol and tobacco<\/u><\/a> and then you inhale all these harmful compounds,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 23 U.S. states have already legalized recreational marijuana for adults with more expected to follow suit in the coming years. Washington and Colorado became the first states to approve legal recreational use in 2012. New York legalized marijuana recreationally in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“We are seeing a lot of problems,” Sabet, who is the current president and CEO of the nonprofit <\/em>Smart Approaches to Marijuana, told Gowdy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is a massive increase in mental illness as a result of this increase in marijuana use. We know that today\u2019s marijuana can quintuple your risk of psychosis and schizophrenia which is the worst thing you can imagine. It increases about six times the risk of suicide. We have a suicide epidemic in this country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He argued that “99% of people” who become addicted to drugs like cocaine, heroin and fentanyl start using alcohol and marijuana first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We can\u2019t turn back the station for alcohol. We\u2019re living with that issue,” he continued. “Why would we make the same mistake again for marijuana and legalize it and make it legitimate?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabet said the path the country is going down with marijuana is a “huge, huge mistake.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You can\u2019t walk down the streets of so many of our major cities without smelling it everywhere. We\u2019re seeing second-hand smoke issues on the rise. Driving is a huge issue, unlike tobacco which doesn\u2019t impair you on the road, marijuana does. We\u2019re seeing huge increases.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabet dismissed the argument that prohibiting recreational pot led to racial inequities which could only be corrected through legalization, telling Gowdy that the movement to legalize has only “targeted” America’s minority communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“By the way, they are not Black and brown communities benefiting from this. If anything, they are being targeted by this industry by putting pot shops in the poorest communities of our country\u2026we\u2019re not seeing social justice. We\u2019re not seeing a reduction in any kind of incarceration as a result. So no, I mean, it\u2019s been a huge boon to the shareholders. It’s just a lot of people pretending to care about civil rights and social justice when they really just want to smoke weed. They want to legitimize their own lifestyle, and the reality is, we\u2019re paying a huge, huge price for this,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gowdy said that neither he nor Sabet is advocating for incarcerating people for marijuana usage, but “we don\u2019t want it legalized and normalized.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don\u2019t want it legalized, commercialized, normalized,” Sabet agreed. “You can\u2019t walk down a street like New York without smelling it and seeing it everywhere in your face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report from MJBizDaily showed Americans spent roughly $30 billion on legal marijuana<\/u><\/a> in 2022, eclipsing sales of “feel-good” products, including beer, opioid medications and topical pain relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabet called for an awareness campaign to educate young marijuana users about the risks of permanent impairment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “I don\u2019t want to see people in prison. I don\u2019t want to give them a criminal record. Let me be careful to say I\u2019m not talking about criminalizing anybody for this, but the reality is we need an education and awareness campaign in this country warning people about the issue of marijuana, warning people about their brains, how your brain is developing until age 25 or 30, and when you take in THC, it attacks very critical centers of your brain. We need an awareness campaign,” Sabet said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “We should know that more marijuana doesn\u2019t benefit anybody,” he added, “except these really rich investors who got in early.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foxnews<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The push to legalize recreational marijuana across the U.S. has been linked to a troubling rise in mental health issues, suicides and an increased risk for psychosis, but “money-hungry” cannabis investors are leading the charge to commercialize the drug nationwide, Dr. Kevin Sabet warned Sunday. Sabet, a former White House drug policy adviser to Presidents Obama, Bush and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[6677,2861,5522,10122,10120,1585,10121],"class_list":["post-15934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-drug-addiction","tag-drugs","tag-legalization-of-marijuana","tag-mental-health-problems","tag-risk-of-psychosis","tag-suicide","tag-widespread-use"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15936,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15934\/revisions\/15936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}