Letter: What are our legislators thinking in legalizing marijuana?

Posted 3/25/21

An article in last week’s Bristol Phoenix noted that local legislators Walter Felag, June Speakman, Jason Knight and Susan Donovan expressed their support for legalization of marijuana for …

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Letter: What are our legislators thinking in legalizing marijuana?

Posted

An article in last week’s Bristol Phoenix noted that local legislators Walter Felag, June Speakman, Jason Knight and Susan Donovan expressed their support for legalization of marijuana for Rhode Island. The principal reasons that the legislators are for legalization are regulation, tax revenue and that Massachusetts has legalized. 

I think we need to take a deep breath and consider the downsides to legalization. There is growing evidence from Colorado that the social costs of legalization may far outweigh the tax benefits and that regulating legalization is not working.

Check out these quotes from an article that appeared in the Denver Post:

• “Colorado’s youth use marijuana at a rate 85 percent higher than the national average”;

• After six years of commercialized marijuana, “marijuana-related traffic fatalities are up by 151 percent;

• “Now Colorado has issued over 40 little-publicized recalls of retail marijuana laced with pesticides and mold.”

• “Colorado has a booming black market exploiting a permissive regulatory system – including Mexican cartel growers for that black market who use nerve-agent pesticides that are contaminating Colorado’s soil, waters, and wildlife.”

•There has been “no net gain: marijuana tax revenue adds less than one percent to Colorado’s coffers, which is more than washed out by the public health, public safety, and regulatory costs of commercialization.”

• There are “marketers who advertise higher and higher potency marijuana gummi candy, marijuana suppositories, and marijuana ‘intimate creams.’ This aggressive marketing makes perfect sense in addiction industries like tobacco, alcohol, opioids, and marijuana.

There are health issues to consider. According to a CDC’s newly released report, state-sanctioned marijuana shops are contributing to the rise in lung illnesses and deaths at a higher rate than previously believed. Although marijuana is smoked with fewer puffs, larger puff volumes and longer breath holds may yield greater delivery of inhaled elements.” In other words, when compared to tobacco smoking, exposure to chemicals damaging to the heart and lungs may be even greater from smoking marijuana. 

States that have legalized are seeing more marijuana-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and accidental exposures. Studies have shown that 8 to 11 percent of young people who smoke marijuana regularly will move to more addictive drugs. 

With the opioid epidemic raging and with overdose deaths throughout Rhode Island, why would we introduce legislation to start juveniles smoking marijuana earlier in their life, increasing the likelihood of an overdose death later in their life. Has Rhode Island prepared facilities to deal with any of these medical issues?

Additionally, states that have legalized are encountering increases in workplace problems, including labor shortages and accidents. Rhode Island already has a jobs problem for our young people, and legalization will close many high paying jobs to marijuana users. Electric Boat in Quonset is looking to hire 1,700 new employees in good paying jobs. These hires must be drug free and that includes marijuana.

We should realize that the push for legalization is being done by large corporate entities flush with cash. These entities include big tobacco.

Our legislators should already know that the health of our community and the future of our youth will never be worth the dubious revenue claims made by the legalization lobby. Give our youth a fair shot and do not legalize marijuana.

Michael Byrnes
Bristol

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.