Category Archives: Featured

Patrick Kenneally, Illinois State’s Attorney, Takes Action

By Patrick Kenneally, originally published in the Parent Action Network newsletter

In September of 2023, cannabis dispensaries in McHenry County, Illinois became the first in the country to be required to warn customers through in-store signage of the mental health dangers of cannabis and abstain from marketing their products as medicine. The dispensaries agreed to these consumer protections as part of a settlement with the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office, the office I run, in lieu of facing the consumer fraud action.

The path to this settlement was somewhat of a personal journey for me. When I became the state’s attorney in 2016, McHenry County was in the clutches of the opioid epidemic. Cannabis and the prospect of legalization was not my focus. Some constituents, however, began expressing grave concerns over the groundwork for legalization being laid in Illinois.

While I did my best to ape their concern, as any good politician would, in the back of my head I was thinking, “settle down Poindexters, who cares!” “A little marijuana is basically harmless unless you’re a bag of Doritos. We got bigger problems.”

As Illinois began pushing for cannabis legalization in earnest in 2019, more and more constituents, however, began confronting me over the fact that, apparently, I was not doing nearly enough to use my platform to sound the alarm.

Doing my own research

Somewhat exasperated, I thought I would do my own cannabis research so I could refute the bleak forecast of these chicken littles that seemingly would not leave me alone.

The first thing I realized during my investigation was that everything cannabis purveyors said to justify legalization was a lie. No, cannabis had nothing to do with mass incarceration because no one, ever, was being imprisoned for possessing a small amount of cannabis. No, tax proceeds from cannabis would not meaningfully assist in paying off Illinois’ $300 billion debt. No, cannabis legalization would not further social justice but would worsen the plight of the most vulnerable in our society. No, cannabis does not make users freer, just the opposite. No, cannabis is not harmless, it is devastatingly dangerous, especially to mental health.

What I was unprepared for was the venality, lawlessness, and downright malice of the cannabis industry.

Passing the cannabis bill was not the result of the best argument winning out after a robust debate in the Illinois legislature. The bill was written by the powerful D.C. lobby that the Governor’s sister was heading up and the cannabis industry had lavished hundreds of thousands on legislators to shore up support.

Deceptive Sales Pitches

Since legalization, the defining feature of the dispensaries’ sales strategy has been marketing cannabis as medicine capable of treating those disorders that have defined our age – depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and bipolar. This entire marketing strategy is a complete delusion. Cannabis is not medicine, but a noxious substance that causes or exacerbates the mental health disorders it purportedly treats.

We must pause here and allow the cruelty of this sales strategy to truly resonate. They are manipulating those already in the throes of suffering and desperate for relief into purchasing a product that will only cause them to suffer more.

Not only is this strategy cold-blooded, it’s illegal. By the very terms of the bill that legalized recreational cannabis, cannabis companies cannot make any “medicinal, therapeutic, or health” claims about cannabis.

Much like the atheist who picks of a Bible to disprove its claims and is on fire with the Holy Spirit by the time he closes Revelation, by the time I had finished doing my research on cannabis, I was not only terrified, I had been totally converted and knew something had to be done.

The Billboards Posted on Highways

I began screen-shooting the most egregious examples of the illegal marketing on dispensary websites in McHenry County (e.g. “this sativa-indica hybrid is perfect for those suffering from bipolarity”).

After showing the dispensaries the screenshots and pointing out the provision of the law that the dispensaries were flagrantly violating, it did not take much to move them from a contentious to conciliatory posture with respect to our potential lawsuit. We settled quickly.

In addition to warning customers of the mental health dangers and no longer making health claims, we negotiated $100,000 payable to the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office to conduct a public education campaign on the dangers of cannabis. Check out the following billboards:

In addition, personal injury litigation against big cannabis is inevitable.  I would be happy to speak with anyone injured by cannabis use (i.e. developed psychosis, depression, anxiety, etc.) about their options in this regard.  Feel free to reach out at [email protected].

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Editor’s Notes:  Reefer Madness can strike suddenly and unexpectedly.   Read our last article which covers cases in Illinois.

If warning labels had been enacted in nearby Winnebago County, could the worst crime in Rockford, IL, this year have been averted?

Other Cases of Reefer Madness in Illinois

Both the Highland Park shooter of 2023 and the Henry Pratt shooter of 2019 were well-known stoners.  The Chicago Tribune wrote that acquaintances described the Highland Park shooter as “an isolated stoner.”  

The Henry Pratt Shooter took out his anger at other employees and killed five people.  The only drugs in his toxicology report were THC, caffeine and nicotine.  

In 2014, another disgruntled employee, Brian Howard, and set fire to a traffic control station in Aurora, IL, in 2014. He smoked a bowl of marijuana that morning.  His vandalism disrupted most plane travel at Chicago’s two airports for at least one week of the busy summer season.

The marijuana industry promises cures for mental health issues.  We hope other counties and jurisdictions throughout the country will warn consumers that the industry perpetuates fraud.  Let’s stop the con artists!

Expert Opinions burst stoners’ pipe dream of pot legalization!

Two recent opinion letters in major newspapers should send shock waves to Progressive voters  who value social justice and environmental issues.  They expose that marijuana legalization actually harms the promises of a more just society and a better earth. 

Kevin Sabet, PhD, President of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) wrote in The Baltimore Sun on June 30, 2024.  Sabet applauded Governor Moore but also said that his pardons prove that marijuana legalization is not about social justice.  (Maryland’s Governor Wes Moore recently issued 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions, erasing the records. President Biden and other governors made similar moves in recent months.)

Sabet agrees with Moore’s pardons. However, he explains that it would have been possible without allowing the commercial marijuana industry to invade the state. (Nearby Virginia has decriminalization, without legalization.) Continue reading Expert Opinions burst stoners’ pipe dream of pot legalization!

Our Reaction to Rescheduling: It’s Politics, not Science

Our initial reaction to the announcement that the Biden Administration may reschedule marijuana is that it is a political move intended to get young voters. We have not seen a Press Release.  If true, this move is not based on science, or it’s based on bad science.  We support whatever Smart Approaches to Marijuana decides to do in terms of legal options or other avenues to stop rescheduling

More than 100 individuals who are victims of marijuana or have family members who are victims wrote to the DEA and the DOJ and pleaded with the DEA not to reschedule marijuana.  We’ve written about the differences between decriminalization, rescheduling and legalization with commercialization.
Continue reading Our Reaction to Rescheduling: It’s Politics, not Science

Legal Marijuana Is Making Roads Deadlier

Cannabis-related traffic fatalities are a threat to public safety. Governments need to get serious.

By the Bloomberg News Editorial Board,   April 4, 2024

Marijuana legalization is killing a lot of people. Not slowly — though some studies suggest that it may be doing that, too — but quickly, in car crashes. It’s one more symptom of the disastrous rush by lawmakers to capitalize on cannabis sales without doing the work needed to keep the public safe. 

In Canada, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, one study found a 475% increase in emergency-room visits for cannabis-related crashes in Ontario between 2010 and 2021. Many more cases likely went undetected, owing to a dearth of reliable testing for driving while high. 

In the US, the proportion of motor-vehicle fatalities involving cannabis use soared to 21.5% in 2018, up from 9% in 2000. One analysis found a 10% increase in vehicular deaths, on average, following legalization by states. In California, the increase was 14%; in Oregon, it was 22%. 

This suggests that more than 1,000 Americans could be dying annually because of marijuana-related accidents — and that’s just in states where legalization has occurred. Given the ease of transporting the drug across state lines, the real number could be far higher. 

The cause of these deaths isn’t just the drug itself. It’s ignorance. A recent study found that about half of marijuana users thought they were OK to drive 90 minutes after inhaling or ingesting the drug, yet their driving performance in a simulated vehicle was as bad as it had been after 30 minutes. Evidence suggests people should wait a minimum of four hours before getting behind the wheel; some experts recommend eight to 12 hours. 

That people don’t know this is the fault of governments, which have rushed headlong into legalization without doing the required research or adopting necessary safeguards. In effect, they’re conducting live experiments on their own citizens. Voters should hold officials accountable for boosting public awareness and developing better detection technology.

The fight against drinking and driving offers a useful precedent. After widespread government-sponsored campaigns helped stigmatize such conduct, drunk-driving fatalities were cut in half. Stronger enforcement also played a part. The advent of Breathalyzers made drinkers think twice before getting behind the wheel. 

So far, marijuana users don’t face the same disincentive, partly because the technology for roadside testing isn’t reliable or widespread. Fear of arrest is a powerful public-policy lever, but right now, many drivers are getting high with impunity, and the public is paying a high price.

Bloomberg News published this editorial on April 4, 2024. It was reprinted in part by the Chicago Tribune on April 10, 2024. 

The photo above comes from a crash that killed three teens and injured another near Lynnwood, WA in July, 2017. Washington legalized marijuana in 2012, and commercialized it in 2014.