Friday Fact: Veterans addicted to marijuana have been dying by suicide
Data from the 2024 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report outlines another sad chapter in the story of marijuana and its terrible effects on mental health. Among all veterans who died by suicide in 2022, almost 9% were diagnosed with cannabis use disorder. Of veterans who died by suicide and had a diagnosed substance use […]
More (very, very) bad news on weed and road safety
(The Center Square)– As marijuana legalization spreads across the U.S., transportation and road safety organizations are sounding the alarm that driving high is just as dangerous as driving drunk — and much more complicated. Marijuana, the THC-containing part of the cannabis plant, impairs driving performance by diminishing motor coordination, multitasking abilities, reaction time and distance perception, according to […]
READ: Will Jones III in the Afro on the ugly truth about legalization
Will Jones reflects on how the big “social equity” promises from Illinois’ politicians regarding the legalization of marijuana in the state have been broken, big time. At the end of the day, Will notes, all that social justice rhetoric was nothing more than rhetoric. Read Will’s oped here.
FRIDAY FACT: Big Marijuana’s stock is crashing
More bad news for Big Marijuana. The largest pot ETF, AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis, is getting absolutely clocked. This week saw it hovering well below $2.50, a massive climbdown from its stratospheric high February 2021 of $55.05. What put it in freefall? Hopes around federal legalization of marijuana reached a crescendo during the early days of […]
EXPLAINER: The FDA’s Delta-8 Bombshell
The Food and Drug Administration has dropped a bombshell on a dangerous sector of America’s addiction industry. How? The agency recently signaled a major turn in its enforcement policies around Delta-8 THC—expanding its previous focus on going after extremely harmful kid-aimed packages of edibles onto hitting what’s inside those packages. THE BACKGROUND Delta-8 THC […]
Love weed? Prepare to have your heart broken
You don’t have to argue with most people about cigarettes being bad for their heart. Marijuana has been a different story; it’s not viewed by the general population as a drug that causes cardiovascular damage. That story is (thankfully) changing. A new study from the University of California-San Francisco investigating the effects of marijuana on […]
Why Marijuana is TERRIBLE for the planet
June 5 was World Environment Day. This international holiday celebrates the land, sea, and sky that make it possible for us to live. Which means there’s literally no better time to bring up one of the most under-discussed aspects of the marijuana crisis: Its horrific environmental impact. Below are some handy facts that everyone […]
The Highest Love
The Butterfly upon the Sky The Butterfly upon the Sky, That doesn’t know its Name And hasn’t any tax to pay And hasn’t any Home Is just as high as you and I, And higher, I believe, So soar away and never sigh And that’s the way to grieve— —Emily Dickinson Randy Michael was getting […]
For “Friction”: Diving Deeper into The Ezra Klein Show
Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation, was recently on Ezra Klein’s podcast The Ezra Klein Show. The Anxious Generation studies the epidemic of teenage mental illness as technology like smartphones and social media become increasingly pervasive in their lives. Excessive usage of these technologies disconnects a teenager from the non-digital world: the real […]
The Drug Review: It’s Only Hemp, Right? The Problem and Why Grassroots Advocacy is the Answer
It’s a cheap gimmick in bad sitcoms, but for Donna, nothing was funny about it. Her friend made a batch of delicious brownies, and Donna was a sucker for brownies. She tried one bite, and then another, and another… In no time, Donna inadvertently had ingested an entire pot brownie. But the result of this […]