This op-ed first appeared in The Gazette, the Washington Examiner’s Colorado Springs-based sister publication.
The national conversation turns once again to marijuana and a potential federal rescheduling from Schedule I to Schedule II, or even lower. Big Pot’s new ad blitz, sponsored in part by Big Pot’s new investors — Big Tobacco/Big Pharma/Big Alcohol — focuses on rescheduling to allow this pot cartel to access banking and compete with Canada’s system, which lacks meaningful financial guardrails.
Obviously, in the U.S., Schedule I means marijuana remains a federal crime in all 50 states, D.C. and territories, but nobody — left or right — has cared about that little technicality for years. Even under the Trump administration, some remain above the law. The pot robber barons freely advertise and boast of their criminal activities without consequence, and throw millions in campaign “donations” at the president and other politicians. The humble opponents of Big Pot don’t sell millions of dollars worth of addictive substances every day, so these underdogs have little influence to peddle.
Also just this month, prominent actor Pete Davidson reconfirms what we all now know: “Marijuana is too strong.” On “The Breakfast Club” show, the sharp, philosophical, and now-sober Davidson (who cannot be tagged a pot novice) discusses how even with daily use, marijuana gave him psychosis. Literal psychosis. Not metaphorical psychosis. Davidson, now a successful graduate of professional mental health and substance treatment, confirms that marijuana nowadays, is “worse than acid.”
Psychosis is a serious mental condition, causing people to lose touch with reality, and do dangerous and irrational things such as put babies into microwave ovens. Acid/LSD is also a serious Schedule I drug that creates psychosis. Marijuana is now LSD, and a new medical condition is now on the rise, “Cannabis Induced Psychosis.” Emergency room visits due to pot have skyrocketed, and addictions counseling programs are full of marijuana addicts.
Current studies confirm that 1 in 200 marijuana users become psychotic from the new marijuana. Bad odds. Psychosis aside, there is also the far more common condition of “Marijuana Use Disorder,” suffered by 1 in 10 users (1 in 6 who begin using as teens), which includes actual physical and psychological addiction to pot. Marijuana addiction has skyrocketed in Colorado and nationwide since the commercialization of it, and since the industry put the marijuana on steroids, genetically modified it, and injected it with chemicals and hormones.
How did we get here?
Years ago, when many of us began our campaign to legalize cannabis, it was a mellow happy plant. I was raised in Iowa, where cannabis did grow in those verdant rolling hills. This “Midwest Ditchweed,” sometimes augmented with Mexican brickweed or Maui Wowie, was gentler than alcohol or other drugs.
At the time, we thought it wrong that this mild plant God made grow freely would be “Schedule I” under Federal Law. Into our high-tech VCRs we would plug the notorious “Reefer Madness” tape, and laugh uproariously at this 1930s-era black & white government-sponsored propaganda against marijuana, where the actors played out strange psychoses or catatonic states. But that joke isn’t funny anymore. Demonstrating that God indeed has a sense of humor, within the previous decade or so, Big Pot has artificially superjuiced marijuana, and literally made Reefer Madness into reality.
Davidson also discusses how marijuana had about 2% to 4% THC back then, and now Big Pot has supercharged it to many times that. With edibles, candies, concentrates, vaping, wax, shatter, dabbing, and other artificial mutations of the plant, it is difficult for even experienced users to always responsibly consume it. With alcohol, at least, it is easier to regulate dosage. An analogy: three pints of Coors Light is the identical weight and volume of three pints of vodka, and although the effect of consuming identical quantities of each would be wildly divergent, it is easier for the consumer to tell the difference and regulate accordingly.
Not so with marijuana. The absorption is far slower than alcohol. Accidental overdosing of edibles or concentrates is almost the norm, rather than the exception. So, while the rescheduling argument had great strength 40 years ago, ironically, Big Pot itself has placed marijuana firmly within Schedule I.
Big Pot is already arrogant, strident, and powerful enough; a rescheduling now would demolish guardrails, and send Big Pot the message to further tighten its chokehold over our communities and youth. So for now, marijuana should remain Schedule I alongside its new cousin LSD, until Big Pot decides to act responsibly, or is forced to.
Raging against the industrial marijuana machine is useful, but unfortunately it is only a long-term solution. The marijuana monster has its tentacles inserted into all levels of government, including even potentially the president of the United States.
Big Pot also colludes with certain media entities that depend on advertising dollars, and thus has an army of pot propagandist lapdogs. There is precisely zero chance that Big Pot will quit unilaterally; Big Pot is addicted to the most powerful substance known to man: money. Legislatures and politicians also suffer from the same condition. The top-down solution will be elusive, and will take time.
For now, we should retain the current Schedule I, keep up public education about the industry and the product it produces, and most importantly, help those who need help right now.
There are people suffering today with damage caused by Big Pot. For an addict, if you’re digging yourself into a hole, step one is: stop digging. For a few lucky people, the hole that you dug is shallow enough that you can step right out of it on your own.
For many others, your hole is too deep. You’ll need help to climb out. Somebody, or multiple somebodies, will throw you a rope or a ladder so that they can help pull you out. We know someone that we can help, if not ourselves, be the one to get them to step out of the hole or throw them a rope. Most addicts need multiple ropes to stop digging and climb out.
I was deep down that hole. Good people threw me some ropes to help me climb out, and Big Pot — cackling all the while — burned my ropes and kept me down there longer than I should have been. But when people like Davidson emerge from the fog, they can be even more knowledgeable and articulate for truth than they would have been absent the personal stumble. God can use any misfortune for good.
On a larger scale, the blueprint for progress might be sitting right in front of us. I am old enough to remember when Big Tobacco advertised everywhere and targeted children with its addictive product. Remember Joe Camel? The cartoonish animal who wore cool sunglasses with a cig dangling from his mouth, was a blatant effort by Big Tobacco to target children.
Through sustained efforts over years primarily involving civil lawsuits, settlements and payouts that continue to this day, Big Tobacco was finally brought to heel, and tobacco use has declined in the U.S. and among youth.
More recently, our Colorado attorney general has obtained settlements from the opioid peddlers, and also from Juul, for its admitted targeting of youth for its (nonmarijuana) vaping products.
But Big Pot cynically uses hundreds of child-targeted ruses to create early addicts for its products, even literal gummy bears and goofy colorful advertising that makes sober grown adults cringe, but which attracts children (or child-like adult marijuana addicts).
In addition to government lawyers and attorneys general, the private trial lawyers’ bar is a potent weapon in Colorado and throughout the U.S. These hounds should release themselves onto Big Pot, and hit it in the place it cares most about: the wallet.
Personal injury lawyers are masters at obtaining just compensation, and making whole those who suffer from Big Pot’s relentless pursuit of profit. Back when I practiced law, we sued one of Colorado’s largest corporate pot growers for its use of Eagle-20, a systemic fungicide used on lawns, turf and ornamental flowers. (i.e., plants you look at but don’t consume into your body). The corporation discontinued the use of the toxin.
A portion of Big Pot’s profit should be disgorged to help the very people who contributed to that profit. It should aid treatment programs, education and prevention programs, and our colleges and universities to train more licensed professionals to treat the increasing numbers of marijuana addicts emerging every day. That’s as American as apple pie: if you make a mess, you clean it up. Big Pot made a mess, and it is past time for cleanup.
It is strange that the same people or groups who rightly condemn Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol and Big Pharma for leaving a wake of destruction though public health, cannot seem to muster even a fraction of that same ire against Big Pot.
It might be that Big Pot has falsely aligned itself with “the left,” while the likes of Big Tobacco or Big Alcohol were seen as more associated with “the right.” Obviously, Big Pot has no ideological principle other than money. Exhibit A: Big Pot grovels this very day at the feet of Donald Trump and the Republican Congress, seeking rescheduling.
That noise you hear right now is Big Pot scrambling to unleash its paid propagandists to falsely accuse me of switching over to being an anti-pot zealot, anti-free market, or worse, a Prohibitionist. Marijuana is a nuanced political issue in our country, and it does not always lend itself to simplistic politics.
It is possible to believe — as the majority does — that there is a sensible middle ground between criminal prohibition and rampant overcommercialization of an addictive and harmful product. My views have been consistent and unwavering. I didn’t leave marijuana; it left me.
Recently, my friend, a skinny Black Reggae Man living his life peacefully, just got raided, arrested, and jailed for the “crime” of having a few more than six Ganja plants in his modest yard, not selling it and not hurting anyone. He is who I wrote Amendment 64 for.
ALLITERATIVE IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTERS REFLECT TRUMP’S BRANDING
He is who we Coloradans voted for. Prohibition is still here, and marijuana remains illegal, even in Colorado, for the everyday man and woman, but not for the preferred few granted a limited government license that most of us can’t get. So don’t believe the hype. The times, they haven’t a-changed; Marijuana, in a sense, remains illegal in Colorado — unless you’re Big Pot.
Unsurprisingly, the law enforcement tip against my poor Reggae Man came in from a licensed marijuana shop in the area. Seems that his gentle cannabis, grown outdoors with no chemicals, given away without remuneration, might be preferable to the genetically modified-for-profit pot grown artificially indoors. After all, organized criminals hate competition.
Robert J. Corry Jr. is pursuing a master’s degree at Colorado State University and is a recovering lawyer. He is an author of Colorado’s constitutional Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana possession and use in the state in 2012.