The Associated Press (AP) reports that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is “leading an effort to make sure vendors working with legal marijuana businesses…don’t have their banking services taken away.” According to AP, “Two years ago, the U.S. Department of the Treasury gave banks permission to do business with legal marijuana entities under some conditions. Since then, the number of banks and credit unions willing to handle pot money rose from 51 in 2014 to 301 in 2016. Warren, however, said fewer than 3 percent of the nation’s 11,954 federally regulated banks and credit unions are serving the cannabis industry.”
Her views on marijuana tend to reflect a widespread sentiment throughout the nation. Drug Policy.org reports that “There is more public support for marijuana law reform than ever before with new polls showing more than half the country is in favor of legalizing marijuana. The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) believes marijuana should be removed from the criminal justice system and regulated like alcohol and tobacco.”
In the sort of irony that characterizes modern day America, near-hysterical warnings about commonplace substances, especially sugar and salt, long a part of standard food and beverages, are heard almost daily. Politicians and bureaucrats produce campaigns to wean consumers away from these everyday commodities as though they were poison. And yet many of the same officials have readily jumped on the marijuana legalization bandwagon, despite significant scientific information about its harmful effects. 28 states have legalized the substance for medicinal or recreational use.
The strange nonchalance towards marijuana contrasts with medical evidence, which are listed in many sources, among them Addict-help.com
“Some of the well-known side effects of chronic, marijuana use include:
- Can stunt brain developmentin users until around the age of 25, when the brain reaches maturity
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- Reduces thinking, learning and memory functions that can be permanent
- Ongoing chronic use, one study suggests, results on average in an eight point IQ loss between the ages of 13 and 38
- Can cause breathing problems, which lead to an increased risk of regular lung infections or lung related illnesses
- Raises the heart rate, which can increase the likelihood of heart attack, especially among older users or those with existing heart problems
- Pregnant women that smoke weed risk causing both brain and behavioral issues in their child
- Worsens mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and suicidal thoughts
- On average, research suggests, one out of every 11 marijuana users becomes addicted to the drug.”
Research from Northwestern University notes that recreational use by young adults caused “significant abnormalities in two key brain regions that are important in emotion and motivation.”
Part of the new tolerance can be traced back to a lack of knowledge of how marijuana itself has changed. A Smithsonian study reports:
“…as more states approve medical and even recreational marijuana, scientific inquiries have spiked, especially studies aimed at finding out what exactly is in today’s weed—and what it does to our bodies. In Colorado, which made marijuana legal in November 2012, the latest results show that the pot lining store shelves is much more potent than the weed of 30 years ago. But the boost in power comes at a cost—modern marijuana mostly lacks the components touted as beneficial by medical marijuana advocates, and it is often contaminated with fungi, pesticides and heavy metals. There’s a stereotype, a hippy kind of mentality, that leads people to assume that growers are using natural cultivation methods and growing organically,” says Andy LaFrate, founder of Charas Scientific, one of eight Colorado labs certified to test cannabis. “That’s not necessarily the case at all.” LaFrate presented his results this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Denver.LaFrate says he’s been surprised at just how strong most of today’s marijuana has become. His group has tested more than 600 strains of marijuana from dozens of producers. Potency tests, the only ones Colorado currently requires, looked at tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound that produces the plant’s famous high. They found that modern weed contains THC levels of 18 to 30 percent—double to triple the levels that were common in buds from the 1980s. That’s because growers have cross-bred plants over the years to create more powerful strains, which today tout colorful names like Bruce Banner, Skunkberry and Blue Cookies.”
There is little support, nor would it prove particularly effective, to treat marijuana in the same manner as crack or heroin. But the actual reason for the enthusiasm for legalization comes from the substantial income that could be gained from taxing the product in the same manner as alcohol or tobacco.
A recent Tax Foundation study found that “A mature marijuana industry could generate up to $28 billion in tax revenues for federal, state, and local governments, including $7 billion in federal revenue: $5.5 billion from business taxes and $1.5 billion from income and payroll taxes. A federal tax of $23 per pound of product, similar to the federal tax on tobacco, could generate $500 million per year. Alternatively, a 10 percent sales surtax could generate $5.3 billion per year, with higher tax rates collecting proportionately more. The reduction of societal risk in being engaged in the marijuana trade, as well as the inclusion of taxes, will combine to reduce profits (and tax collections) somewhat from an initial level after national legalization. Society pays all the costs regardless of legality but tax revenues help offset those costs.