Maryland lawmakers corrupted by drug money ignore marijuana harms
More than 16 news articles from 8/16/16 through 10/23/16 reveal a virtual feeding frenzy among Maryland state legislators, marijuana bureaucrats and would-be pot contractors. They all cited serious squabbling over access to profits from the federally-illegal addictive dangerous child brain poison, marijuana being falsely promoted as “medicine” under drug-trafficker-friendly Maryland State laws.
Currently, Maryland state legislators are considering additional proposals that would further entrench their previous misguided pro-pot public-health endangering laws.
Examples of such corrupt pro-drug legislative activities are illustrated in the Washington Post’s 9/23/16 article titled: “Delegate’s medical pot roles reviewed.”
But two recent official federal government reports categorically confirm from numerous scientific studies that smoked marijuana is not medicine but instead is a dangerous Schedule 1 drug that endangers the health and safety of users, especially youths. And is a major gateway drug leading to addiction to other deadly drugs.
The new FDA and DEA report of 8/11/16, reaffirmed the many previous scientific studies stating that “there is no medical use for smoked marijuana.”
And the November 2016 U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Addiction stated categorically “None of the permitted uses under state laws alters the status of marijuana and its constituent compounds as illicit drugs under Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act.”
Additionally, the 2016 Surgeon General’s report stated, “Marijuana use, in adolescents in particular, can cause negative neurological effects. Long-term, regular use starting in the young adult years may impair brain development and functioning… And marijuana use—particularly long-term, chronic use or use starting at a young age—can also lead to dependence and addiction.” Thus also it confirms marijuana as a gateway drug.
Further, annual national drug overdose death rates currently reported by the CDC, are skyrocketing at all-time high levels and increasing rapidly. To illustrate the enormity of this U.S. drug death plague, if caskets of the 500 victims of drug-related deaths that occur daily in the U.S. were stacked up alongside the Washington Monument, they would extend to nearly twice the height of that monument! Every day 24/7!
We are Parents many of whom have witnessed two generations of families being destroyed by substance abuse. From our direct experience with this drug holocaust among our children typically beginning with marijuana, we parents published a full page ad in the 1/23/17 Washington Times offering specific suggestions for federal legislation to fix that urgent and growing national public health crisis. See ad at link: http://americasurvival.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/NICAPA11-WTPO0123.pdf
Therefore, we Maryland parents urge our Governor and State Legislators to immediately recognize the imminent danger to all Maryland citizens from this unprecedented drug overdose death public health crisis. We ask you to end the drug-money fueled attempts to create and promote a dangerous (federally-illegal) marijuana industry in Maryland. Instead we implore you to adopt protective laws such as those suggested in our Washington Times ad.
Otherwise those who continue to support the current headlong rush to enable and promote a federally-illegal marijuana industry in Maryland, will be shamefully responsible for continuing the dope-money-fueled destruction of our children, families, schools and communities throughout our State.
— DeForest Rathbone is a board member of Parents Affected By Addiction (PABA). He can be reached Leonardtown, Maryland, at 301-994-2733 or DZR@prodigy.net. This was originally published March 2 by the website Parents Opposed to Pot, www.poppot.org.
