Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

April 2019 – In the midst of the movement to legalize marijuana use across America, a huge gap exists between what mental health professionals know and what the general public has been led to believe regarding the harmful effects of pot, according to a veteran journalist and author.

In a January speech at Hillsdale College (hillsdale.edu) in Hillsdale, Michigan, Alex Berenson said that despite a 30-year “shrewd and expensive lobbying campaign” by pot advocates, the media, and some politicians, his research indicates that marijuana use is linked to mental illness and violence.

“Almost everything you think you know about the health effects of cannabis, almost everything advocates and the media have told you for a generation, is wrong,” Berenson said after his research of studies and interviews with psychiatrists and brain scientists.

Among the deceptions that Berenson’s research undermines:

• Marijuana has many different uses. In reality, put works only in a few narrow conditions.
•  Cannabis stems opioid use. In truth marijuana is too weak a painkiller for people who need opiates.
•  Pot is safe and a potential treatment for psychiatric problems like depression. Berenson said, “… a mountain of peer-reviewed research in top medical journals shows that marijuana can cause or worsen severe mental illness, especially psychosis… .”

Berenson is the author of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.

imprimis.hillsdale.edu, 1/19