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After calls for cannabis to be legalised in the UK police chiefs in Los Angeles - the state’s largest legal weed market - say there’s been a rise in illegal cannabis market even though recreational marijuana was legalised back in January….
But there are hundreds of illegal cannabis stores where customers can buy the drug at cheaper prices than at the heavily regulated and taxed legal dispensaries.
California regulators sent out almost 1,000 cease and desist letters to marijuana businesses they suspected were illegal in April alone.
And in May 142 people were charged in a massive crackdown on the illegal shops.
Lt Spell, who oversees the division's cannabis unit, said there had been much more "illicit activity" in the past few months.
And he said one of the biggest falsehoods about legalising marijuana is that it will curb illegal activities.
He told Sun Online: “Here in Los Angeles we see a large number of illegal retail stores.
“But we also come across a lot of illegal grows - places where people are growing the cannabis.
“And oftentimes it's to export out of state into places where it’s still illegal because the marijuana that might cost, let's say $3,000-a-pound here, may cost as much as $4,000- to $6,000-a-pound somewhere else.
“Probably one of the biggest fallacies about the regulation or the legalisation of recreational marijuana is that the illegal activities will go away when in fact, when you look at all of the states - and we've done comparative analysis with other places - all of the places that have allowed recreational marijuana, have seen increases in the illegal activities.
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- Sean Ziemelis, 31, attacked a seven-month-old baby at a flat in Luton last year
- A court heard he was high on cannabis when he threw the child out a window
- He also threw the child's mother out of a window. Both escaped major injury
Mr Lofthouse said there were concerns about Ziemelis' behaviour after he had taken cannabis the previous night. He had been discovered with his genitals out while on top of a dog in an alleyway.
Then at 2am on August 1 last year the child's mother found him with his thumbs in the eyes of the baby. When she screamed for help he started to strangle the boy.
Ziemelis produced a green-handled knife and when he was hit with a piece of wood by the grandmother of the little boy he threw that woman across the room before punching the mother until she fell in and out of consciousness.
The prosecutor went on: 'He picked up (the boy) and dangled him out of window of first floor flat for a couple of minutes. A crowd had gathered because of the commotion. People were shouting not to hurt the baby.
'He threw the baby to the left, away from the people as if he did not want them to catch him, but he was caught.'
Ziemelis then bit the mother's toe before throwing her out of the window. Her fall was broken because the onlookers had placed bins underneath the window. She suffered cuts, bruises and a loose tooth.
The police arrived and found him on his back wearing only a pair of shorts, covered in blood. He said: 'I feel broken all over.' He said he did not remember throwing either the baby or woman out of the window. Asked what would happen if a baby was thrown out of a window he said: 'They would die.'
His blood was tested and it indicated he was a heavy cannabis user…He said he had 'displayed psychotic symptoms and episodes due to cannabis misuse.'
The judge went on: 'I do not need a professional to tell me you are dangerous. Anyone who could do that to a child is dangerous. The appropriate sentence is life imprisonment. Any other sentence would not be adequate to reflect what happened.'
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by Dr. Drew W. Edwards Republished from DrDrewEdwards.org
All the independent, peer-reviewed research confirms what I and other experts have observed for years. Cannabis users significantly underachieve in education, their careers, and have significant problems with their most significant relationships. Two recent and eye-opening studies published in the medical journals Addiction, and Neuropharmacology respectively reveal gross deficits in cognitive ability (IQ) executive functioning, attentiveness, inhibition of impulsiveness and motivation.
What the Studies Reveal
In a large prospective study approximately 1900 adolescent were followed and evaluated for 10 years. The results were clear, definitive and shocking. Marijuana users were three times more likely to be unemployed or have dropped out of school compared to non-users. The evidence was so compelling that the lead investigator of the research dubbed marijuana as, “the drug of choice for life’s future losers.” In short, adolescents and young adults who possess the intelligence, desire, and motivation to go on to college or technical school frequently abandon these aspirations for something less rigorous once they begin smoking marijuana.
Hurd and colleagues (2014) demonstrated that even casual cannabis use impairs memory, motivation, and executive functioning, which involves the ability to organize tasks, control impulses and set
priorities. As a result, most marijuana users adjust their life’s trajectory, goals, and priorities downward to accommodate their impaired cognitive state. Parallel research published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (2015) reveals the nearly 30 percent of marijuana users suffer from Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD). This is much higher than the addiction rate for those who use alcohol. One of the reasons is that the average age on initiation to illicit drugs is during the 12th year. This precedes the neuronal pruning and myelination that occurs during puberty. Out of 8,000 new initiates to an illicit drug each day in the US, 7,000 will use marijuana.
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We wanted to make sure you had seen four key studies just into play
- A groundbreaking study in The Lancet found that marijuana use over four years actually made it harder for patients to cope with chronic pain, and did not reduce their use of opioids.
- A study in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that increasing self-exposure to non-medical marijuana was a predictor of greater odds of opioid dependencediagnosis.
- A study in the International Review of Psychiatry found an increased rate of serious mental illness in states that had legalized medical marijuana.
- In JAMA: "(The) associated acute and long-term psychoactive effects on brain function (of marijuana) are...known. Expanding use of cannabis among pregnant and lactating women (as likely will occur with legalization) may lead to increased risk from fetal and child exposures if the teratogenic potential of cannabis remains underappreciated."
Additional Resources on Link Between Marijuana and Opioids
These articles follow other warnings from medical professionals: the recent editorial published in the Journal of the Society for the Study of Addiction, which cautions against drawing policy conclusions from population studies, and the editorial comment from the American Society of Addiction Medicine on February 20, 2018. And don't forget NIDA's rigorous study showing pot users are twice as likely to have abused opioids and have an opioid use disorder than non-marijuana users.
SAM has published a one-pager describing the overwhelming link between marijuana and opioid abuse. While not every marijuana user will go on to use heroin, nearly all heroin users previously abused marijuana. We need smart policies that discourage use, get people back on their feet, and restore people to participate in and contribute to society. States that have legalized marijuana, by contrast, see increased drugged driving, increased arrests of minority youth, and increased emergency room visits. Colorado is experiencing the highest number of drug overdoses in its history. Legalization is a failed experiment.
Sincerely, Dr. Kevin Sabet President, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM)
Affiliated Fellow, Yale University