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As the very, very false perception that ‘Weed is harmful’ goes down – consumption goes up, and up, and up! Big Tobacco 2.0 is now in full flight and like version 1.0 is conning too many people, particularly the young. Ah! But that’s the key demographic to seduce and manipulate if you want to drive your industry profits moving forward – customers for life – Addiction is the business model and the emerging generation will be the first causalities, then families, then communities, then….
In short, there are now twice as many daily or near daily marijuana users in the country than just a decade ago. Additionally, there are now over 8,000 new marijuana users each day and 22% of 18 to 25-year-olds are currently using the drug - the highest number for all three stats in recent memory. Worse, annual use by ages 16 and up has significantly risen since last year.
Marijuana use has skyrocketed in our country as the perception of harm has plummeted. The marijuana industry, just like Big Tobacco years ago, continues to glorify marijuana as a cure-all substance that offers no risk to anyone.
The reality is this: if it were not for marijuana, overall drug use in the country would be going down. Mental health issues are rising, more people are dying due to marijuana-impaired drivers, and positivity rates among our workforce are up. None of this will help our country succeed and be productive.
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"Potentially thousands of children and young people are being trafficked from Vietnam and exploited by ruthless criminal gangs."
August 21, 2018
Experts warned Monday that large numbers of child slaves may be working on cannabis farms in London.
Since 2016, authorities have found 314 illegal cannabis farms in London, according to police data. The most alarming figures, however, come via human trafficking experts, who warn that the number of children used as slave labor on these farms is likely in the thousands.
"Experts say children are being trafficked from Vietnam and other countries to work in these farms, which are often located in residential properties, and that the scale of the problem has been vastly underestimated," Reuters reports.
The Australian human rights group, Walk Free, claims that Britain is home to 136,000 slaves. Last year, more than 2,000 child trafficking victims were reportedly referred to British authorities, the highest number on record, the group says.
"The high number of cannabis farms across London and trafficking of Vietnamese children to work in them is extremely worrying," said Jakub Sobik, a spokesman for Anti-Slavery International. "Potentially thousands of children and young people are being trafficked from Vietnam and exploited by ruthless criminal gangs."
In February, the British government came under fire for refusing asylum to an orphan from Vietnam who was trafficked to work in the cannabis industry.
"It is vital that these children are seen by police as victims first and foremost and given proper support, as too often they are treated as criminals instead," Catherine Baker, a police officer at the anti-child trafficking organization ECPAT UK, told Reuters. "These vulnerable children are exploited in extremely dangerous conditions, with little or no pay and may be physically and psychologically abused by their traffickers."
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"He had eaten a [cannabis] edible and just couldn't handle it," MacIntosh said.
Cannabis overdoses are something he said he's personally witnessed at the bar three times in the past year.
That mirrors a trend happening across the country — as the Oct. 17 date for legalization of recreational pot looms, CBC News has learned that cannabis-related emergency room visits have spiked.
Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows that over the past three years the number of emergency room visits because of cannabis overdoses in Ontario has almost tripled — from 449 in 2013-14, to nearly 1,500 in 2017-18.
In Alberta, the number has nearly doubled over the same timeframe, from 431 to 832.
Symptoms of cannabis overdose — or more precisely, THC poisoning, THC being the main psychoactive chemical in pot — include elevated heart rate and blood pressure, anxiety, vomiting and in some cases psychosis, possibly necessitating hospitalization.
Symptoms of cannabis overdose — or more precisely, THC poisoning, THC being the main psychoactive chemical in pot — include elevated heart rate and blood pressure, anxiety, vomiting and in some cases psychosis, possibly necessitating hospitalization.
Outside of Alberta and Ontario, the statistics on cannabis overdoses are sparse. But the CIHI figures that are available for other reporting jurisdictions, which include small samples from health centres in Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Yukon, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, show Canadians in some regions are being sent to a hospital because of pot at four times the rate they were in 2013.
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," said Heather Hudson at the Ontario Poison Centre at SickKids children's hospital in Toronto, pointing to a rise in the number of cases involving children and cannabis.
"We are certainly getting more calls about children who are being exposed unintentionally," she said.
For complete article go to ‘Who said WEED was Harmless??
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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.