Marijuana Is Not Opioids, Comparing

PART TWO OF A SERIES (CONTINUED FROM THE MARCH SHEPHERD EXPRESS)

Marijuana Is Not Opioids, Comparing Them Is Dishonest

WHY ROBIN VOS IS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF CANNABIS REFORM

BY JEAN-GABRIEL FERNANDEZ

Robin Vos’ position is a mix of intellectual dishonesty and outright lies, but the fact he chose to put marijuana legalization on the same level as the opioid crisis is the most harmful lie of all.

Today, at least 128 Americans die every single day from opioid overdose, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). One does not even need a source to affirm that not a single person died today—or yesterday, or tomorrow—from marijuana overdose, simply because it is impossible to die from consuming weed. Not a single death from marijuana overdose has ever been recorded in all of human history.

Despite this, marijuana is illegal; opioids are largely legal. “In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequently led to widespread diversion and misuse of these medications before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive,” NIDA explains. “In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died as a result of an opioid overdose, [and] an estimated 1.7 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers.” NIDA has more to say on the topic: Up to 29% of people prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them, and between 8% and 12% of users develop a serious opioid use disorder. An estimated 4-6% of

CAR CRASHES DID NOT INCREASE SIGNIFICANTLY IN STATES THAT DO HAVE LEGAL WEED

them will then transition from prescription opioid to using heroin. Most horrific of all: “About 80% of people who use heroin first misused prescription opioids,” says NIDA. If there is one real “gateway drug,” it is legal opioids, which have been demonstrated to lead directly to heroin and, ultimately, to death.

Opioids, unlike marijuana—which is not physically addictive—are extremely addictive. They are prescribed legally to deal with the same host of issues that marijuana has been well-documented to address, specifically reducing chronic pain. Marijuana is one of the world’s most efficient painkillers, it is not addictive, entirely harmless, and it is pleasant to use with virtually no drawbacks.

The fear mongering from the conservative, anti-weed faction points to “drawbacks” of legal weed such as the possibility of increased car accidents due to a driver being impaired. This ignores the fact that, in reality, car crashes did not increase significantly in states that do have legal weed—and as demonstrated above, the accessibility of marijuana does not change much before and after legalization. Someone who would drive while impaired is not someone who would wait for legalization to buy weed, when it is equally accessible before. In fact, legalizing marijuana only ensures that the people arrested for it—more than 600,000 per year—do not end up stripped of their basic freedoms in the name of an unfounded fear of cannabis.

Marijuana is nothing but a safe, non-addictive, benign alternative to deadly, addictive but legal opioids who lead unsuspecting patients to heroin abuse. Marijuana also happens to be extremely cheap to produce, and it can be grown at home entirely for free by the patients themselves.

Jean-Gabriel Fernandez is a journalist and Sorbonne graduate living in Milwaukee. He writes about politics, cannabis and culture for the Shepherd Express.