By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
August 1, 2024
Less than five months after U.S. senators Thom Tillis and Ted Budd fired off a letter raising questions about how North Carolinians would be kept safe once the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians began selling recreational marijuana, Tillis now says he supports a “comprehensive regulatory framework that treats marijuana just like tobacco.”
His comments were shared July 30 as part of an interview with Green Market Report during which the senator argued that “the federal government needs to figure out a safe way to allow this market to occur.”
But the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, points out that there’s simply no such thing as a “safe marijuana market.”
“Treating marijuana like tobacco will lead to increased usage and normalization of a substance that has proven adverse health effects,” Creech said. “Do we really want the cannabis industry to become like Big Tobacco, making huge profits from people’s addictions and burdening society with perpetually increasing healthcare costs?”
The CAL leader wrote an email to Sen. Tillis outlining the dangers of legalizing pot and pointing to Kevin A. Sabet’s book, Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana, which Creech says sums up the matter well.
“Our long-term social experiments with alcohol and tobacco illustrate how an open market spreads greater harm. Legalization does not curb violence; it increases public health harm. Both alcohol and tobacco are relatively cheap and easy to obtain, as marijuana would be under legalization. Commercialization has glamorized their use and entrenched levels of social acceptance. The nature of addiction and the lure of enormous profits have led to unbridled marketing tactics. Addiction has simply become a price of doing business,” Sabet has written. “The legalization of marijuana would be a simplistic solution to a complicated problem. It would increase use and, with it, a host of attendant and social problems. If anything, our experience with alcohol and tobacco over the past few centuries demonstrates that if these drugs are to be ‘models’ for legal marijuana, then we’d better buckle our fiscal and psychological seatbelts, because we are in for a long and rough ride.”
In his interview with Green Market Report, Tillis reportedly expressed concern over vaping products and illicit grow operations but indicated his belief that a comprehensive approach involving federal regulation that states could opt into or out of could address those issues. He said crops should be tested and illicit operations shut down.
“There’s a lot of bad happening in plain sight that we have to end, and then let states choose to legalize it for better medical use or for recreational use,” he said.
In truth, increased legalization will make marijuana more accessible to youth, despite age restrictions, Creech said.
“Approximately 52.5 million people, or about 19% of Americans, reported using marijuana in 2021, a number that would likely soar with legalization. The comparison to alcohol use, with 84.1% of U.S. adults having consumed it at some point, suggests a significant potential for expanded marijuana use and its associated harms,” he wrote in his email to Tillis. “Studies have shown that early exposure to marijuana can negatively impact brain development, leading to cognitive impairments and an increased likelihood of addiction.”
Creech said legalizing pot could lead to more impaired driving, especially since there is no reliable roadside test for marijuana impairment and that its role as a gateway drug would exacerbate the nation’s already horrific substance abuse crisis. He also pointed to the economic burden that legalizing marijuana would create by increasing healthcare costs and workplace accidents and decreasing productivity. Furthermore, he said that efforts to establish a “comprehensive regulatory framework” for marijuana to try to ensure safety, quality, and compliance would be complex and resource-intensive, and that even with regulation, the illicit market for marijuana would not disappear.
“The social impact of increased marijuana accessibility would be significant, particularly in vulnerable communities. Increased availability will likely lead to higher rates of addiction and social issues, disproportionately affecting lower-income and marginalized groups,” he added.
Tillis’ call to treat marijuana like tobacco comes just weeks after the N.C. Senate tacked a medical marijuana provision onto a bill that would regulate the sale of hemp-derived products sometimes consumed by children. The Republican-led House refused to take up medical marijuana bills in 2022 and 2023, with leaders of the GOP caucus saying there were not enough votes to entertain the bills.
Creech is hopeful that lawmakers will continue to hold the line and not be lured to vote for the bundled bill proposed this session.
“Each of these issues deserves its own consideration, and bundling like this leads to less informed decision-making on an issue of remarkable social consequence. An omelet with one rotten egg makes a rotten omelet, and this measure as it is, with a provision for so-called medical marijuana, makes for a rotten bill,” he said.
For more news about marijuana in the Tar Heel State, visit the marijuana tab of the Christian Action League website: https://archive.christianactionleague.org/category/marijuana/.
