On marijuana policy, even when the Biden administration faces facts, it uses them for the wrong purposes.
As a result, Second Amendment gun rights are at risk.
The thrust of Biden’s marijuana policy until now has favored legalization and leniency even as all the new empirical data show marijuana to be far more dangerous than public mythology recognizes . A Monday Justice Department court filing in a Mississippi gun case, though, finally acknowledges the science. In any other context, this would be a good thing, even if woefully belated. If the administration were honest and wise, which it isn’t, it would base the rest of its marijuana enforcement on the facts related in the court filing.
Before addressing the gun rights milieu, let’s focus on those facts against marijuana. As the Justice Department writes, “Marijuana intoxication can lead to an altered perception of time, short-term memory loss, impaired perception and motors skills, paranoid thoughts, and even hallucinations.” Moreover, “people who use marijuana are more likely to develop psychosis and long-lasting mental disorders , including schizophrenia.” And: “Marijuana use is also associated with depression, thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts, and suicide.” Keep in mind that this comes from an administration pushing for the liberalization of marijuana use.
As we have editorialized numerous times , these conclusions come from a plethora of recent and amply peer-reviewed studies showing that marijuana is a highly dangerous substance and that legalization has led to higher traffic accident rates and increased health problems, including greater cancer risks and worse incidence of mortality. It even has been shown to do damage to human genes.
Yet again and again, Biden and his fellow Democrats , and some less-than-exemplary Republicans , have, until now, peddled the fiction that marijuana isn’t very harmful. In April, the Drug Enforcement Administration under Biden’s prodding announced that it is reclassifying the narcotic from a Schedule I controlled substance to a Schedule III one, making it less a priority to police and probably watering down penalties for its use.
On the other hand, smart Republican governors such as Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin have vetoed bills based on, and otherwise fought, the harmful, pro-marijuana lies. They are saving lives in doing so.
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All of which ordinarily would mean the public should welcome a course reversal on marijuana by this administration. Alas, in this instance it is admitting the drug’s dangers only to push a gun grab that federal courts of appeals have ruled unconstitutional . At issue is a law that makes it illegal for a controlled substance user to own a gun, even if there has been no court order or conviction invalidating the gun ownership and even if the gun was not used in conjunction with the marijuana use. The overall subject, both in general and as applied to particular circumstances, is being fought in several lengthy court battles .
These cases deserve more discussion on another day. For now, though, the Biden administration should be consistent in its message and actions on marijuana. What the administration, in its anti-gun fervor, finally admits about the dangers of marijuana should guide its policies across the board. Instead of succumbing to calls for more leniency and more legalization, Biden and his fellow Democrats should just say no.
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