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Editor’s note: This commentary is by Joseph W. McSherry, MD, PhD, who is an associate professor of neurological sciences at the University of Vermont and a member of the Vermont Coalition to Regulate Marijuana. The views expressed here are his own.

There are those who would say today’s pot (aka, cannabis, marihuana, marijuana, Mary Warner, etc.) is not your Dad’s pot, or your pot from the ‘60s. True, everyone has their own plant material, but cannabis has been around with full gene complement for 30-some million years, along with its nearest neighbor, hops (as in beer). Because of the prohibition, breeders of cannabis have selected for strains that are high in THC for the users (aka, recreational market). So, except for the consequences of the prohibition, there has been no change in cannabis.

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The prohibition was enacted because of testimony that marihuana caused “darkies to think they were as good as white people” and “white women to want sex with Negroes and entertainers” (Harry Anslinger, 1937 to the U.S. Congress). And it caused people to become psychopathic murderers, children to become addicts and all sorts of things that are absurd. The absurd part has been repeatedly been pointed out by blue ribbon commissions assigned to find the harm in cannabis, in the USA, Canada and elsewhere repeatedly over the last 70-odd years. The prohibition has been effective, however, in providing lifelong disadvantage to people of color, even in Vermont, today.

THC, the psychoactive bugaboo in cannabis, does not cause mental disorders. THC does not cause kids to drop out of school or lose their IQ. Indeed, the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded research to show the harms of long-term high dose THC over the lifetime of rodents. The high THC group ate as well as the controls, but ended up weighing less, with fewer tumors and living longer. Now do you get an idea how to deal with the obesity epidemic?

None of us adults wants the kids to be using drugs. Kids do, as did some of us. Kids say it is easier to get cannabis than alcohol.

None of us adults wants the kids to be using drugs. Kids do, as did some of us. Kids say it is easier to get cannabis than alcohol. Cannabis is prohibited. Anyone who sells cannabis to a kid can make more money selling opiates, coca, ecstasy, LSD or some other things you may not remember. So they do. Kids get alcohol from their parents’ liquor shelf or some “street person” who agrees to buy some for a hefty markup. That source gets the kids no closer to the seriously toxic drugs (alcohol is very toxic, but I mean the other ones listed before), and that is better than getting them into the pipeline for illegal drugs. Which is why many of us favor legalizing and controlling cannabis, better than the prohibition can.

To keep kids using as little and few drugs as possible there is a better solution. Effective intervention, not like DARE, have been shown to delay the adoption of high-risk drinking, smoking and illegal drug use. Such intervention has a herd effect, reducing and delaying the adoption of binge drinking and such on their classmates as well as the sensation seekers and risk takers. Education is the only treatment that works, as with cigarette smoking. Prohibition just makes it an exciting adventure to get illegal stuff!

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The association of cannabis use and schizophrenia, addictions and dropping out of school? Association does not imply cause. A recent article pointed out that having more sex, staying up late and drug use are associated with high IQ. But that does not mean a dull gal can get smart by having more sex, staying up late and doing drugs. She might find she has a brighter group of friends. But if one of them asks her to hold the baggie while they go to the bathroom as the police are coming in the door, well there are consequences. As a parent, if your kid starts doing cigarettes, alcohol, illegal drugs early and intensely, this is likely a warning that they are on a trajectory you should be concerned about. Not the drugs, but the proclivity is a warning there are potential problems in the future. Focus on what to do to mitigate the unhappy outcome, forget the drugs.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair

Which explains why some otherwise sensible folk oppose sensible regulation of cannabis. It is past time to sensibly regulate cannabis.