EDITORIAL: Don’t celebrate Colorado’s pot predators

The pot propagators of today can’t seem to agree on the origin of the annual “4/20” observance that is coming up Saturday — the backstory has various versions — and the marijuana-muddled minds that thought it up in the first place probably don't remember.

Whatever the dubious date is supposed to signify, permit us to rain on the parade.

4/20’s silly “celebration” of all things cannabis is too often accompanied by unwarranted giddiness in news coverage. There typically also are obligatory — and oblivious — political pronouncements from Colorado’s elected officials about the tax revenue retail pot sales have brought state and local government since legalization in 2012.

And the pols are sure to add solemn assurances about the supposedly rigorous regulations governing marijuana commerce.

All of which ignores the very real damage legalization has done to our state — and especially to our youth. It is undermining physical and mental health; job readiness; safety on our roads; education; and public safety, among other aspects of everyday life.

The organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana — whose mission is to rein in retail pot with hard science and effective regulations — serves as a resource to parents and policymakers alike in navigating the pervasive presence of legal marijuana.

This week, Smart Approaches to Marijuana reached out to the media and public to put a damper on 4/20 enthusiasm — by serving up a dose of reality. The national group announced it would be available to the media to fill in the gaps in the propaganda churned out by the marijuana industry. Kudos to the organization; Colorado’s media would do well to tap into the group for the other side of the story.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana has a wealth of sobering information to share. Colorado-based Executive Vice President Luke Niforatos, “will detail how misinformation continues to be pushed by the industry and advocates like NORML and Drug Policy Alliance, which flies in the face of science and data,” the announcement promises.

“Marijuana products are getting more potent as the drugs become legal, industrialized and commercialized,” Smart Approaches to Marijuana warns in its statement.

“These drugs are increasingly linked with a range of health consequences, including IQ loss, depression, suicide, psychosis, stroke and schizophrenia.”

It’s particularly the peril to Colorado’s kids that should be of concern. As Niforatos wrote in a recent commentary for The Gazette, “Much like Big Tobacco, which happens to now be one of the top investors in the marijuana industry, Big Weed is up to the same tricks: target kids and hook an entirely new generation of high potency users.”

Indeed, he noted, “Despite claims that the profit-driven marijuana industry would not sell to minors, when past-month high school users in Colorado were asked to identify the one source where they ‘usually’ obtained marijuana, 4.9% said, ‘I bought it at a marijuana store or center.’

In Arizona, where recreational marijuana was legalized in 2020, 21% of 12th grade marijuana users who were surveyed said they had bought it from a dispensary within Arizona, Niforatos reports.

Meanwhile, the potency of today’s pot — typically consumed in concentrate form using discreet, disposable vape devices sold in every pot shop — is magnitudes higher than just a decade ago. The devices are easily concealed in any middle schooler’s backpack.

“With this jet fuel has come a host of new harms: marijuana addiction rates are now up to 1 in 3, and your chances of developing schizophrenia are five-fold according to new research,” Niforatos wrote for The Gazette. “Even though the industry lies that it ‘chills you out,’ this new high-potency weed is causing more anxiety and psychosis than ever before.”

That’s nothing to celebrate. We’ll instead applaud Smart Approaches to Marijuana's efforts to alert Colorado parents about pot’s perils to their children.