Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts has launched an aggressive campaign against the legalization of medical marijuana in his state, going as far as to warn residents that legalizing the drug, which has never been linked to a fatal overdose, would kill their children.”This is a dangerous drug that will impact our kids,” Ricketts told reporters on Wednesday. “If you legalize marijuana, you’re gonna kill your kids. That’s what the data shows from around the country.”When asked what data Ricketts was referring to, a spokesman directed USA TODAY to two studies that found an increase in marijuana use among teens who died by suicide in states that had legalized the drug. In his remarks Wednesday, Ricketts’ cited two cases where young men who died by suicide had eaten cannabis edibles. The Republican governor made the statement as the state legislature is considering a bill to legalize the use of cannabis if recommended by a health care practitioner. The legislation restricts the form of consumption to oils, pills or tinctures, and prohibits marijuana smoking, even in the patient’s home. Ricketts decried the legislation as a “dangerous” effort to go around the normal process of federal approval for a drug’s use.”Big pot, big marijuana is a big industry,” Ricketts said. “This a big industry that is trying not to be regulated, to go around the regulatory process. And that’s going to put people at risk: when you go around regulations that are designed for the health and safety of our society.”Ricketts said experts agree that marijuana is dangerous, citing its Schedule I classification by the Drug Enforcement Administration as evidence. That classification signifies that the federal government believes it puts marijuana on the same level as drugs like heroin and LSD and that it has “no currently accepted medical use.”Yet, according to the DEA, “No deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported.” And legalization advocates point out that marijuana’s classification was the result of an act of Congress, the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, and not based on conclusions from scientific experts. A divided Nebraska Supreme Court stripped a legalization measure off the ballot last year after concluding that its wording violated the state constitution’s single-subject rule, which bars activists from bunching multiple issues into a single yes-or-no question for voters to address. State Sen. Anna Wishart, a Democrat who introduced the legalization bill, said that if the legislation doesn’t pass, advocates will propose a new one-sentence ballot measure through a citizen-led petition drive.for clarification of the data the governor was referring to when he warned of the potentially fatal consequences of legalization. But in his remarks Wednesday, Ricketts’ cited two cases where young men died by suicide after ingesting edible marijuana.
All data is taken from the source: http://usatoday.com
Article Link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/12/nebraska-gov-pete-ricketts-legal-marijuana-kill-your-kids/4663466001/
#marijuana #newsdaily #newstodayworld #newsworldfox #newstoday #newstodayabc #
