I gave testimony this week in opposition to New Hampshire bill HB1633 to legalize recreational marijuana. This is my testimony.
I post frequently on Facebook about my concerns with the efforts to make recreational marijuana legal in New Hampshire and I get a lot of pushback from people who believe marijuana is completely harmless. I have warned them repeatedly about the studies that show that marijuana is linked to psychosis and an addiction expert who says that 1 in 20 daily cannabis users will develop schizophrenia. I worry a lot about these people and I hope against hope that my words will wake them up from their complacency.
Last year, a long-time acquaintance of mine insisted over and over in his comments on my Facebook post that cannabis does not harm anyone’s brain and as a daily user he functions at a high level. He accused me of spreading propaganda. Sadly, within three days of posting those comments he died by suicide. He left behind a wife and two small children. I was not able to wake him up to the serious harm he was doing to himself and his family with his daily use of marijuana and it breaks my heart.
Also last year, a young man was accused of shooting his uncle to death in Derry. He was reportedly motivated by a paranoid belief that his mother and others were trying to kill him and his father. This has all the hallmarks of cannabis psychosis. Living in southern New Hampshire, he would have had easy access to high-potency recreational marijuana just across the border in Massachusetts. We will see many more such crimes as marijuana floods across our borders from all sides.
Recently, when I was with a group of young people holding signs with messages in opposition to this bill outside Reps Hall, Jim Riddle, an advisor for the New Hampshire Cannabis Association verbally abused the teens and one of them started crying. I stood between him and them. He was very angry but I insisted that he back off. This is not normal behavior for a grown man. Marijuana is not good for anyone’s brain.
From Alex Berenson’s 2019 book “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.”
Dozens of well-designed studies have linked marijuana with psychosis and schizophrenia. Researchers have found marijuana users are much more likely to develop schizophrenia. People with the disease suffer more frequent and severe relapses if they smoke.
Most people will never have a psychotic episode while using marijuana. Some will have temporary breaks from reality. But an unlucky minority of users will develop full-blown schizophrenia. At this point, doctors have no way of predicting who they will be.
We should not add to the supply of dangerous addicting, mind-destroying high-potency recreational marijuana by legalizing it in our state.
Related: Marijuana Legalization is NOT Inevitable
Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to vote ITL on HB1633, “relative to the legalization and regulation of cannabis and making appropriations therefor” at sharon.carson@leg.state.nh.us; William.Gannon@leg.state.nh.us; shannon.chandley@leg.state.nh.us; Becky.Whitley@leg.state.nh.us; Daryl.Abbas@leg.state.nh.us; matthew.schelzi@leg.state.nh.us
