Pot Promotes Gum Disease, and Far Worse

The only “real” long-term health consequence of using marijuana is gum disease, says a new study. Really?

Marijuana is known to be tied to schizophrenia, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental health issues.

“A long-term study of nearly 1,000 New Zealanders from birth to age 38 has found that people who smoked marijuana for up to 20 years have more gum disease, but otherwise do not show worse physical health than non-smokers,” a press release stated.

A critical follow-up to that comment was — unfortunately but not surprisingly — buried near the bottom.

“We don’t want people to think, ‘Hey, marijuana can’t hurt me,'” said Dr. Madeline Meier, an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University. She said other studies on the same sample of New Zealanders showed a tie between marijuana use and psychotic illness, IQ decline, and downward socioeconomic mobility.

The drug is also known to be tied to schizophrenia, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and a slew of other mental health issues.

“The link between mental illness and marijuana has never been clearer,” Kevin Sabet, president of SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) and director of the Drug Policy Institute, told LifeZette. “We can’t promote mental health and marijuana at the same time.”

The study may give pot supporters more ammunition to wage continuous legalization efforts — currently there are initiatives in five states. More than 20 states have already legalized the drug in some form and there have been more than 50 additional legislative initiatives around the country aimed at legalizing or decriminalizing medical or recreational marijuana, refinery29.com reports.

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“The motive for lobbyists is clearly profits, as it was for big tobacco, with total disregard for human consequences,” Dr. Bertha Madras, a psychobiologist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and Harvard Medical School professor, said.

Anti-Marijuana Movement
SAM Action (the sister organization to Smart Approaches to Marijuana) said this week it was partnering with the Coalition for Responsible Drug Policies (California), Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts, Mainers for Healthy Youth, and Nevadans for Responsible Drug Policy, to help spread important messages about marijuana’s harmful affects. SAM Action was founded by former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Americans have been subjected for too long to propaganda that mistakenly offers just two options: Lock up pot users or legalize the drug, said one expert.

“The more voters know about how reckless and pot industry-friendly these laws are written, the more uncomfortable they will be with them,” Sabet said. “We know most people don’t want pot shops in their neighborhood, marketing marijuana gummy bears to their kids. If they knew these initiatives would do that, these votes would be no contest.”

Marijuana laws profit businesses instead of communities, Sabet added.

Jeffrey Zinsmeister, executive vice president of SAM Action, said Americans have been subjected for too long to propaganda that mistakenly offers just two options: Lock up pot users or legalize the drug.

“Once people become aware of what is really happening, that this is really just aimed at enriching some investors at the expense of public health, and that there are other policy options than incarceration or legalization, they start speaking up,” he said.

Up for Grabs — or Dabs
Some of the ballot initiatives include: blocking regulation over sales and advertising of pot edibles, protecting under-the-influence drivers from prosecution, preventing employers from penalizing or firing employees who use marijuana, allowing marijuana industry representatives on state regulatory bodies, and allowing convicted heroin and methamphetamine dealers to operate marijuana businesses.

Now that the legalization movement has started to show its true colors as an addiction-for-profit scheme like big tobacco, the polling has revealed ambivalence toward these measures, Zinsmeister said. In Arizona, where legalization is on the table, a poll stated that just 43 percent of voters supported it.

“Legalization means creating a second big tobacco that makes money by targeting kids and turning them into heavy pot users,” said Jeffrey Zinsmeister.

He said commercial marijuana targets communities with people of color — instead of helping them — much as the tobacco and alcohol industries do. “The reality is finally starting to catch up to the rhetoric,” he said.

“Americans need to know that legalization means creating a second big tobacco that makes money by targeting kids and turning them into heavy pot users,” Zinsmeister said. Just 20 percent of pot users — those who get high more than 20 days a month — consume 80 percent of available marijuana. The younger users start, the more likely they are to develop an addiction and start using heavily, he added.

A 2016 analysis by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that 2.5 percent of adults — almost 6 million people — experienced marijuana use disorder in the past year, and 6.3 percent had met the diagnostic criteria for the disorder during their lives.

Kid-friendly pot edibles like lollipops and gummy bears account for half of the Colorado pot market, which is why shops are pushing free samples and have started marketing super-potent pot products that are over 90 percent pure.

“At the end of the day, it’s just addiction for profit,” said Zinsmeister.