The move to control and normalize weed is hurting children even when they are supposed to be learning.
New York City public school students are up 8 percent on drug addiction this year compared to the same period in 2019, even as enrollment is down 11 percent, according to the city Department of Education. Getting a college promotion is even worse.
It's no coincidence that these numbers are under increasing pressure to make selling and smoking weed part of regular urban life. In the year In 2021, the state legalized cannabis for those over the age of 21. And despite the long wait for the first licenses, legal dispensaries like West Coast (where the city's first legal marijuana store opened to much fanfare in late December) are popping up where there are unlicensed vendors. A surprisingly wide reach has emerged for all children who want to climb. .
This news is even worse when you consider that school drug disciplinary reports are only part of the problem, as marijuana use is often unreported. When you consider the increase in weed THC (the chemical that gets me high) concentrations since the 1990s, the numbers are about 70% worse than the lows.
Combine these factors with growing evidence linking adolescent marijuana use to mental illness and changes in brain reward pathways that can later lead to addiction to other drugs, and a new chapter in the youth mental health crisis is brewing. In addition to depression, anxiety and attempts at self-harm as a result of the epidemic's disastrous school closure policy.
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In fact, an inpatient youth drug treatment facility in the city recently recorded a 95% enrollment for one employee in cannabis addiction.
All of this suggests that the progressive view that weed is a harmless drug is no more influential than the prevalence of alcohol.
Victims of this episode? Children: (Teenagers aren't the only ones who mistakenly try to self-medicate.)
Recent studies show a 245 percent increase in weed center calls for children ages 6 to 18 between 2000 and 2022. Children under the age of 5 have seen a staggering 1,375 percent increase between 2017 and 2021. THC snacks, a big part of the legalization push, are often packaged as regular snacks or candy.
In other words, heat of "justice" aside, the evidence shows that weed legalization causes enormous social harm to the most vulnerable group in society: children.
What do progressives need to understand the law of unintended consequences?
