Oops: A massive new study proves the normalization of cannabis use is an ongoing social disaster.
You’ve got to be under the influence — of toxic ideology, if not pot itself — to ignore the evidence.
Researchers analyzing the health data of 6.9 million people have linked weed use to hugely increased mental-illness rates among adolescent males — including as much as a shocking 30% of schizophrenia cases among young men.
The trend represents not just greater use, but the increasing potency of weed and weed products.
That will only keep rising as the profit motive and industrialization of production, now that it’s so widely legalized, promote delivery of ever-more concentrated THC (the psychoactive chemical in weed) to users.
Schizophrenia is one of the most serious, and tragic, psychiatric disorders.
It can be treated, but patients often go off their meds, become homeless or semi-homeless and terrorize public spaces before harming or killing themselves or others.
So the sheer size of the study and the magnitude of the effect should make the nearly 70% of Americans who generally back legalization take a hard look in the mirror.
Including policymakers.
Here in New York, the rollout of legal weed has been an utter disaster.
With few legit shops, illegal ones have sprung up everywhere.
They are targets for crime, with violent robberies at such places up massively this year.
That’s a far cry from the “equity” paradise left-wingers in Albany promised from legalization.
And there’s zero way to ensure the shops are following the law on selling only to over-21s.
But the larger problem is the normalization of weed.
Above all for impressionable teen males, precisely the group most at risk here.
The numbers prove it.
Emergency calls related to pot use among 6- to 18-year-olds have jumped 245% since 2000. At one NYC addiction clinic alone, 95% of recent admissions were driven by cannabis.
Anti-drug laws hold society together.
Abandoning them doesn’t create equity: It worsens everyone’s quality of life.
The new study shows it wrecks people’s mental health, too.
So remind us: Exactly what is the justification for continuing on this path?
This story originally appeared on NYPost
