Prayer Warrior
Well-Known Member
Two Tales of a City
I've been following this thread and just happened to catch a report in The Epoch Times today about the effects of the cannabis industry on Pueblo, Colorado. The report begins by explaining how cannabis production took over the city, adding jobs and promising a bright future.... That's one tale, but there is another.
Here is an excerpt from that article:
The True Cost of Marijuana: A Colorado Town That Went All-In
By Charlotte Cuthbertson
October 27, 2020 Updated: October 27, 2020
View From the ER
Two emergency room doctors in Pueblo see a different side of the equation and say the deleterious effects of cannabis legalization far outstrip any benefits.
Dr. Karen Randall, who trained in pediatrics and emergency medicine, spent years as an ER doctor in Detroit, but Pueblo turned out to be a whole other level.
“It’s like a horror movie,” she told The Epoch Times. Every shift in the ER brings in a patient with cannabinoid hyperemesis. In layman’s terms, that means someone is screaming and vomiting uncontrollably. The sound is wretched and apocalyptic. It’s caused by chronic cannabis use, usually high-potency products, and it stops when the person stops using cannabis.
Then there’s the psychosis.
“I was in Detroit for 18 years and the cannabis psychosis here is worse than anything I saw in Detroit,” Randall said. “They’re very violent. The combination of this high potency THC and meth just creates this incredibly violent person.”
THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the main psychoactive ingredient in today’s marijuana products, is now being extracted to reach a potency of more than 80 percent. In the 1990s, the average potency of a joint was around 4 percent THC.
Dr. Brad Roberts said he’s seeing more and more patients with psychosis who have no previous psychiatric history and are testing positive only for THC.
“There’s no PCP. There’s no amphetamines. There’s no alcohol. The only thing that comes up positive is cannabinoids. And they’ll admit that they did dabs right before it happened,” he said. “The ones I see that are true psychosis are teenagers—so 17, 18, 19.”
Dabs are a method of taking concentrated THC, usually through a vaping device or a glass rig. The concentrate is most commonly made by using butane to extract THC from the cannabis plant, and then it’s further processed to strip the butane out. Other forms of butane hash oil include waxes, shatters, and budders—which are similar, but have different textures.
Recently, a teenager “yelling incoherently” was brought into the ER with three police officers, five EMS personnel, and three security staff holding him down, Roberts said. The young man had been running along the middle of the street waving a metal rod at cars.
“I gave him 10 milligrams of intravenous Versed—after he had had 5 mg of Haldol, 50 mg of Benadryl, and 2 mg of Ativan [all sedatives]. And it hadn’t put him down. And he had been tased twice by the police,” Roberts said.
The teen later told Roberts he had been smoking concentrated cannabis waxes. Only cannabis showed up on his drug screen.
Roberts and Randall are trying to sound the warning bell on the negative effects marijuana legalization has had on their community and provide information that politicians might not be considering when faced with the legalization decision.
Since legalization in Colorado, Randall and Roberts have seen an increase in all drug use, not just marijuana. Methamphetamine use is up 143 percent, opiates are up by 10 percent, and cannabis is up by 57 percent, according to data from the ER drug screens over the past seven years.
“If you pump a community full of drugs, you’re going to have to expect everything that’s associated with them. You’re going to have to expect the crime, addiction,” Randall said.
“If you listen to what the industry says, we should be rolling in money because we’ve got about 50 dispensaries and we have over 100 legal grows. … And so if you think about just that number, this community should be thriving, we should be rolling in dough.
“And we’re not. We’re the canary in the coal mine. Our kids are failing, our kids are using drugs more. I can’t find health care for them. I can’t find rehab, I can’t find places to put the kids in foster care.”
The Healthy Kids Colorado survey for 2019 showed that 20.6 percent of high school children in Colorado had used marijuana in the previous 30 days.
“While smoking marijuana remained the most frequent method of use in 2019, smoking decreased as dabbing significantly increased as the second most common method of marijuana consumption among high school students,” the survey report stated. Vaping has also become more common.
The survey report concluded, “These are concerning trends since marijuana products associated with these methods of consumption often contain high concentrations of THC.”
Recently, two children younger than 14 ended up in the ER with Randall after each had ingested half of a candy bar that contained 500 mg of THC. Randall said the kids obtained the product from a buyer via Snapchat.
“We’re losing this generation,” she said. “What I see … is the kids either smoke themselves, or they become the parents’ caretaker, they take care of their parents who are smoking—using drugs and drinking. And I don’t know which is sadder—you have an 8 year old that’s giving you the medical history of the parent, or the kid’s using.”
Roberts said he believes the marijuana black market, prior to legalization, was a safer option, as the highly concentrated products now developed by chemists and botanists weren’t prevalent. “There is no part of this that is safer—it’s more frequently used, it’s higher potency use, and there are now all these different ways to use it,” he said.
In the ER, he asks his patients about smoking, drinking, and drug use, and said he’s “amazed” at how many people are smoking five or six joints a day. Or they’ll tell him, “‘I take a hit on the bong when I wake up, I usually go home for lunch and take a couple hits,'” he said.
“Almost 100 percent of the people that use, use daily.”
Both Roberts and Randall say at least one-third of what they see in the ER on a daily basis is solely related to drug issues.
Many patients don’t believe it when the doctors tell them it’s their marijuana that’s causing their hyperemesis or psychosis.
“They always say, ‘It’s not the cannabis. Pot is good for you,'” Randall said, “because it’s been portrayed as super benign—it’s healthy for you, it’s natural.”
Roberts said the last patient he told threw his papers on the floor and stormed out of the room.
Both have received threats, including death threats, for speaking out about the dangers of cannabis. They blame the strengthening cannabis industry lobby.
“They don’t want me to talk about the dangers of cannabis because they want everyone in the world to think it’s wonderful and thriving,” Randall said.
Pueblo City Mayor Nicholas Gradisar said his main concern with the Pueblo cannabis industry is minors using cannabis, which is more readily available now.
“Obviously, it’s illegal to sell or give marijuana to minors. Nobody thinks that’s a good idea,” he said. “There’s some people that shouldn’t use it, because they have that addictive personality—just like they shouldn’t use alcohol. And the high-potency THC, it’s sort of a dosing issue.”
He said the edible cannabis products now must include a dosing recommendation on the packaging. “Obviously you get people that think they know better and they don’t abide by that. But those are decisions that individuals make. Like I say, hopefully, those are adult individuals and not children.”
Source: The True Cost of Marijuana: A Colorado Town That Went All-In
Edit: So, to answer the question in the OP, I think that the facts mentioned in this article should be considered by Christians when deciding whether to smoke pot. How can we risk influencing children, for one thing?
Of course, as Christians, we are to walk by the Spirit and obey the Spirit's leading in all things. Would the Holy Spirit lead us to take a hallucinogenic drug, esp. for the purpose of recreation?
Some things to consider....
I've been following this thread and just happened to catch a report in The Epoch Times today about the effects of the cannabis industry on Pueblo, Colorado. The report begins by explaining how cannabis production took over the city, adding jobs and promising a bright future.... That's one tale, but there is another.
Here is an excerpt from that article:
The True Cost of Marijuana: A Colorado Town That Went All-In
By Charlotte Cuthbertson
October 27, 2020 Updated: October 27, 2020
View From the ER
Two emergency room doctors in Pueblo see a different side of the equation and say the deleterious effects of cannabis legalization far outstrip any benefits.
Dr. Karen Randall, who trained in pediatrics and emergency medicine, spent years as an ER doctor in Detroit, but Pueblo turned out to be a whole other level.
“It’s like a horror movie,” she told The Epoch Times. Every shift in the ER brings in a patient with cannabinoid hyperemesis. In layman’s terms, that means someone is screaming and vomiting uncontrollably. The sound is wretched and apocalyptic. It’s caused by chronic cannabis use, usually high-potency products, and it stops when the person stops using cannabis.
Then there’s the psychosis.
“I was in Detroit for 18 years and the cannabis psychosis here is worse than anything I saw in Detroit,” Randall said. “They’re very violent. The combination of this high potency THC and meth just creates this incredibly violent person.”
THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the main psychoactive ingredient in today’s marijuana products, is now being extracted to reach a potency of more than 80 percent. In the 1990s, the average potency of a joint was around 4 percent THC.
Dr. Brad Roberts said he’s seeing more and more patients with psychosis who have no previous psychiatric history and are testing positive only for THC.
“There’s no PCP. There’s no amphetamines. There’s no alcohol. The only thing that comes up positive is cannabinoids. And they’ll admit that they did dabs right before it happened,” he said. “The ones I see that are true psychosis are teenagers—so 17, 18, 19.”
Dabs are a method of taking concentrated THC, usually through a vaping device or a glass rig. The concentrate is most commonly made by using butane to extract THC from the cannabis plant, and then it’s further processed to strip the butane out. Other forms of butane hash oil include waxes, shatters, and budders—which are similar, but have different textures.
Recently, a teenager “yelling incoherently” was brought into the ER with three police officers, five EMS personnel, and three security staff holding him down, Roberts said. The young man had been running along the middle of the street waving a metal rod at cars.
“I gave him 10 milligrams of intravenous Versed—after he had had 5 mg of Haldol, 50 mg of Benadryl, and 2 mg of Ativan [all sedatives]. And it hadn’t put him down. And he had been tased twice by the police,” Roberts said.
The teen later told Roberts he had been smoking concentrated cannabis waxes. Only cannabis showed up on his drug screen.
Roberts and Randall are trying to sound the warning bell on the negative effects marijuana legalization has had on their community and provide information that politicians might not be considering when faced with the legalization decision.
Since legalization in Colorado, Randall and Roberts have seen an increase in all drug use, not just marijuana. Methamphetamine use is up 143 percent, opiates are up by 10 percent, and cannabis is up by 57 percent, according to data from the ER drug screens over the past seven years.
“If you pump a community full of drugs, you’re going to have to expect everything that’s associated with them. You’re going to have to expect the crime, addiction,” Randall said.
“If you listen to what the industry says, we should be rolling in money because we’ve got about 50 dispensaries and we have over 100 legal grows. … And so if you think about just that number, this community should be thriving, we should be rolling in dough.
“And we’re not. We’re the canary in the coal mine. Our kids are failing, our kids are using drugs more. I can’t find health care for them. I can’t find rehab, I can’t find places to put the kids in foster care.”
The Healthy Kids Colorado survey for 2019 showed that 20.6 percent of high school children in Colorado had used marijuana in the previous 30 days.
“While smoking marijuana remained the most frequent method of use in 2019, smoking decreased as dabbing significantly increased as the second most common method of marijuana consumption among high school students,” the survey report stated. Vaping has also become more common.
The survey report concluded, “These are concerning trends since marijuana products associated with these methods of consumption often contain high concentrations of THC.”
Recently, two children younger than 14 ended up in the ER with Randall after each had ingested half of a candy bar that contained 500 mg of THC. Randall said the kids obtained the product from a buyer via Snapchat.
“We’re losing this generation,” she said. “What I see … is the kids either smoke themselves, or they become the parents’ caretaker, they take care of their parents who are smoking—using drugs and drinking. And I don’t know which is sadder—you have an 8 year old that’s giving you the medical history of the parent, or the kid’s using.”
Roberts said he believes the marijuana black market, prior to legalization, was a safer option, as the highly concentrated products now developed by chemists and botanists weren’t prevalent. “There is no part of this that is safer—it’s more frequently used, it’s higher potency use, and there are now all these different ways to use it,” he said.
In the ER, he asks his patients about smoking, drinking, and drug use, and said he’s “amazed” at how many people are smoking five or six joints a day. Or they’ll tell him, “‘I take a hit on the bong when I wake up, I usually go home for lunch and take a couple hits,'” he said.
“Almost 100 percent of the people that use, use daily.”
Both Roberts and Randall say at least one-third of what they see in the ER on a daily basis is solely related to drug issues.
Many patients don’t believe it when the doctors tell them it’s their marijuana that’s causing their hyperemesis or psychosis.
“They always say, ‘It’s not the cannabis. Pot is good for you,'” Randall said, “because it’s been portrayed as super benign—it’s healthy for you, it’s natural.”
Roberts said the last patient he told threw his papers on the floor and stormed out of the room.
Both have received threats, including death threats, for speaking out about the dangers of cannabis. They blame the strengthening cannabis industry lobby.
“They don’t want me to talk about the dangers of cannabis because they want everyone in the world to think it’s wonderful and thriving,” Randall said.
Pueblo City Mayor Nicholas Gradisar said his main concern with the Pueblo cannabis industry is minors using cannabis, which is more readily available now.
“Obviously, it’s illegal to sell or give marijuana to minors. Nobody thinks that’s a good idea,” he said. “There’s some people that shouldn’t use it, because they have that addictive personality—just like they shouldn’t use alcohol. And the high-potency THC, it’s sort of a dosing issue.”
He said the edible cannabis products now must include a dosing recommendation on the packaging. “Obviously you get people that think they know better and they don’t abide by that. But those are decisions that individuals make. Like I say, hopefully, those are adult individuals and not children.”
Source: The True Cost of Marijuana: A Colorado Town That Went All-In
Edit: So, to answer the question in the OP, I think that the facts mentioned in this article should be considered by Christians when deciding whether to smoke pot. How can we risk influencing children, for one thing?
Of course, as Christians, we are to walk by the Spirit and obey the Spirit's leading in all things. Would the Holy Spirit lead us to take a hallucinogenic drug, esp. for the purpose of recreation?
Some things to consider....
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