Legalization

It will raise valuable tax revenues – Legalization will raise some taxes – much less than promised -- and legalization will significantly increases costs.

Sometimes compared to the repeal of prohibition of Alcohol, Marijuana Legalization defined in California’s Prop 64 is nothing like it:

Colorado Governor – “We are not making any extra revenue from this [legal MARIJUANA]…we’ve spent millions and millions of dollars and we still haven’t gotten [people] to realize you’re taking some serious risk [when consuming marijuana], certainly as a teenager, when your brain is still growing so rapidly.” John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado

Oddly, the idea that marijuana might have a positive affect on the opioid crisis floats around.  There is no evidence for this…

Besides a single marijuana plant needing a minimum of 6 gallons of water a day and most indoor grow sites using enormous amounts of electricity to keep grow lights on 24 hour a day to create a non-stop growing cycle, the environmental practices of most in the marijuana industry are loose at best.

Hemp is proclaimed by many as the most useful plant to ever be grown - with potential uses in every category of products. This is an exaggeration.

Some well-meaning advocates and law makers mistakenly believe that offering a drug user a place indoors to use their preferred drug is helpful and relieves a serious public health issue.

Take a few minutes to watch the chronic state trailer, put together by drug free idaho in conjunction with a variety of partners across the country. The full video is below

We need to commonly understand a few terms to have a useful discussion about decriminalization.

Legalization and three factor that come with it - increased “access” to marijuana, reduced “perception of harm” and increased “visibility” - change the calculus of drug use.  

Some people think, “kids use pot, because it’s forbidden.”

This is a question only a parent or family can answer, but we consistently hear stories from parents: