Tag Archives: California

Colorado, Medical Marijuana

Pot Industry Uses Deceptive Ads, Targets Kids

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By February 16, a mural on the side of Wellstone, a Colorado Springs medical marijuana “pharmacy” had been taken down.   A figure resembling the popular Cookie Monster of Sesame Street fame had been painted on the building two weeks earlier.  Many children were attracted to the popular children’s TV character carrying a plate of cookies, as well as a huge ice cream cone painted along the building’s exterior. There had been a local uproar over the picture and its appropriateness for a medical marijuana dispensary.

Perhaps the producers of Sesame Street objected.  Whatever Continue reading Pot Industry Uses Deceptive Ads, Targets Kids →

California, Child Endangerment, Colorado

Twenty Children, Twenty Deaths Tied to Marijuana

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At least 20 small children have died nationwide because of their parents’ or caretaker’s marijuana usage, since Colorado and Washington voted to legalize pot.    It began in November 2012,  just over two years ago, and it continues to happen in 2015.  Four of those deaths occurred in Colorado, three in California.

It’s high time that a parents’ marijuana usage becomes part of the national discussion of child custody and visitation. It’s hard to understand why Doreen Reyes of Palmetto Bay, FL, had to allow her son, 4-year old Javon Dade, Jr., overnight visitation to the father who used marijuana, cocaine, had several drug arrests and kept pit bulls.  The last time Javon spent the night with him was  in August, the time that he died.

Children’s deaths — involving parents whose marijuana use interfered with parenting — have occurred in every corner of the country—from Vermont to Florida, from Michigan to Texas, from Oregon to Arizona, from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma. The more pot promoters say that marijuana is harmless and justify their growing industry, the more neglected and abused children there will be; some will suffer and die — unnecessarily.

Marijuana users—if addicted– have a tendency to lose a sense of time and be neglectful parents, or in some cases, abusive. Unfortunately, in many cases, both parents are drug abusers.   Many medical marijuana “patients” prefer to convert pot into hash oil.  When these “patients” use butane or other flammables, they should not be given custody and should only be allowed supervised visitation.  Too many fires have resulted in children treated for burns.

Children who died in Fires, Hot Cars

Levi Welton, Kyheir and Dyheir Arthur, Andre Sosa-Martinez and Lileigh Kellenears died in fires.  Levi Welton died in a fire while his parents used pot with friends in another room.  Sosa-Martinez’s mother was also home when he died, but she was too stoned to notice sooner, or to react. In the other three deaths by fire, the parents had left the children home alone while the parents toked.

In Phoenix, a father smoked pot and forgot about time, as his three-month old son died in a hot car.   In El Cajon, CA, last summer, a child died because a couple left their 4-month child, while the mother smoked pot with her brother nearby.  In Kansas, it was a 10-month old baby girl who died in a foster father’s care while he bought marijuana, watched Game of Thrones and left her in the car.

Jamison Gray, Tyler and William Jensen, Kadylak Poe Jones and Giovanni Soto died in overheated cars.  With the passage of time and their parents’ marijuana usage, they were forgotten.

Jase Colby, Gabriela Guerrera, Natalye Price and Andrew Prior died because they were victims of physical abuse….and their parents were marijuana users. Kamari Taylor died because of his mom’s violent boyfriend, who left the child alone as he went out to sell pot. Paxton Stokes’ death is a little more mysterious, but it was probably the marijuana-using mom’s boyfriend who abused him.

Last year in California, 16-month old Harley Bradford and 33-month old Jason Bradford died by drowning while their stoned mother slept and ignored them. She was staying at the home of a friend who had a marijuana grow and hash oil lab. Although the boy tried to wake her, she ignored her son for many hours only to find both children had gone outside and drowned in a swimming pool. The saddest part is that relatives were going to take over custody of the children the next day.

In Vermont, the mother of Saunder Coltrane River Gilruth, smothered him to death while he slept. She admitted to smoking pot and drinking the previous night.  The mother smoked pot daily during her pregnancy, and her physician knew it.  The infant was only 27 days old, and was at risk because of his very low birth weight.  When alcohol or other drugs add to a parent’s impairment, it doesn’t minimize the danger of today’s high-strength pot.

These cases do not include the many children who have been put in harm’s way while their parents made butane hash oil, and caused explosions. Since November of 2012, at least two dozen children have been in homes, apartments or hotels where BHO fires occurred, in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, California and Montana.  A tremendous amount of luck, and quick emergency services, have allowed these children to survive.

While the Press reports on the glamor of those in the marijuana business, young people and young parents have the wrong impression of marijuana’s risks. While everyone acknowledges that heavy drinking or 2nd-hand tobacco smoke are a risks for children, pot users are treated as celebrities. Thanks to Maureen Dowd’s expose in the NY Times, people have been warned to keep marijuana edibles from children.

However, where is the justice for these 20 children who died?

The Children Who Survive

Not all child abuse cases involving marijuana end in death.   One  recent case of child brutality involved a marijuana-addicted mom in Arizona.  The mom has been arrested, and the little girl survives.  In Florida, a man threw a crying 11-month old baby who suffered terrible injuries but is still alive.   Another mother and her boyfriend in Florida smoked pot all morning and ignored the pleas of her 3-year old who was locked outside until a neighbor found him.  The arrested mother claimed, “Marijuana should be legal anyways.”

In family courts, judges need to consider the extreme impairment that many marijuana users have – no matter how much they love their children. There should be requirements for drug testing, addiction treatment and follow-up which figure into custody orders.  Child Protective Services (CHS) and Departments of Children and Family Services (DCFS) are in difficult situations.

The simplest way to cut down child abuse/neglect is not to legalize marijuana, legitimize its use and call it harmless.  Our young people need better education about the harms of marijuana before they become parents.   We also need to provide plenty of ways to get addiction treatment for the parents who need it.

As a nation, we are turning a blind eye to the damage marijuana users may present to their children. We need to recognize the poor judgment and the warped sense of time that marijuana users have.  When marijuana use has been combined with fires and hot cars, children die.  See Child Abuse, Part 1 (neglect) and Part 2 (violence).

California, Drug Policy, Medical Marijuana

Marijuana Policy Must Protect Youth

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By Roger Morgan, Founder/Chairman Take Back America Campaign America has gone from leading 92 countries in the fight against narcotics to a rogue nation with a federal government that has largely abandoned its responsibility to enforce drug laws. Marijuana, the enemy within, is rightly classified a Schedule I drug because it has no accepted medical use and has the potential for harm. Isolated components of the plant, like CBD, do appear to have medicinal value, but the marijuana being sold today as medicine has been bio engineered to be high in THC, the psychoactive ingredient, and void of CBD, because 98% of the “patients” just want to get high.

In 1979 by Keith Stroup, founder of NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws), announced at Emory University that the term “medical marijuana” would be used as a red herring to give pot a good name as a first step toward full legalization. It has been a long, patient plan, but obviously working thanks to the help of a few billionaires, with George Soros at the helm. Owing to a propaganda campaign financed by Soros, and now deceased Peter Lewis (former Chairman of Progressive Insurance) and John Sperling (founder of Phoenix University), Californians approved Prop 215 in 1996 to provide “medical marijuana” out of compassion for the chronically ill. In reality it had nothing to do with compassion, but was simply the first step in the long journey to legalize pot, with no concern for the social consequences for mankind.

Public Health and Safety is the first and most important priority of governments at all levels. Unfortunately, when the federal government fails to enforce the law, the burden falls to the States. When the States fail, the burden falls on local communities, which is exactly what has happened in California. In spite of the fact that the State collects between $58 and $105 million a year taxing marijuana, the money goes into the general fund leaving local government with burden of mental illness, suicides, declining academic achievement, more welfare, traffic deaths and crime. As an example, 54% of arrestees in the Sacramento area test positive for marijuana, 80% for all drugs. But crime isn’t the only problem.children

Marijuana is s fat soluble toxin that stays in the body and brain longer than any other drug. Unlike water soluble alcohol where one ounce is excreted from the body in 12 hours, half the THC from pot remains in the body and brain for a month, compounding with each additional joint. It weakens the immune system, increases the chance of cardiac arrest, leads to respiratory problems and cancer, and causes more DNA damage than even heroin based on studies done over 30 years ago, when the THC content was only 1/2 to 2%. Today the THC content averages 15%, goes as high as 37% in smoked form, and up to 90% as wax (BHO). It doesn’t kill by overdose, but almost all of the 114 Americans who die every day from drug overdose started their drug journey with pot.

Marijuana’s biggest impact is on the brain, which isn’t fully developed until age 25. Until it is, particularly during adolescence, marijuana can cause irreversible brain damage and subsequent loss of IQ by as much as 8 points. Pot is a causal factor in suicidal depression; psychosis including schizophrenia and paranoia; psychotic episodes leading to violent acts; impaired cognition, learning and memory; double the risk of traffic accidents and death; addiction; and causes death or physical deformities to a fetus. Unfortunately, the majority of consumers are 25 and under, peaking at age 19 or 20.PiedPiper(8)

California is targeted for outright legalization in 2016, financed again by Soros and out-of-state billionaires. America is already on a trajectory for 1/4th to 1/3rd of its young people and their offspring to incur permanent brain damage. Since the burden of public health and safety now rests with local government and private citizens, we must lock arms and do all possible to protect our youth, or neither they nor we have a future as a nation
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR ….
ROGER MORGAN Chairman/Founder, Take Back America Campaign, 20 year anti-drug activist dealing with drug prevention at the local, state and national level. (www.tbac.us). Formerly Chairman and Executive Director of the Coalition for A Drug-Free California. Owner/CEO of Steelheart International LLC, engaged in international business development and has been an entrepreneur and businessman in California for 35 years. Formerly, he was Vice President of Volvo of America and General Manager of Volvo Penta of America; and engaged in sales, marketing and dealer administration with Caterpillar Tractor Company and Caterpillar Overseas. He is a graduate of Washburn High School in Minneapolis (1956), Colorado College (1963) and The Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management (1964). He was Founding Chairman of the Coronado SAFE Foundation in 1997, a non-profit dealing with drug prevention; prior Board Member of the San Diego Prevention Coalition; member of the National Coalition for Student Drug Testing; and Special Advisor to the Golden Rule Society in Coronado. His passion for drug prevention stems from two step-children who became drug addicted at age 12 and 14 roughly 32 years ago, and two nephews who died from drug related causes. Morgan has authored two books, published on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble, relating to marijuana and drug prevention. He is a frequent speaker and has written hundreds of articles on drugs and drug prevention.

Medical Marijuana

The Medical Marijuana Hoax, Part 3: The Strategy

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“We are trying to get marijuana reclassified medically.  If we do that, we’ll be using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name.”  Keith Stroup, Emory University,  February 6, 1979

Stroup is founder of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law).  Thirty – five years later,  Stroup and his followers think his plan is  working.   Social media has helped the marijuana movement, which markets itself to teens and young adults, for votes and for new marijuana users.

TODAY, promoters claims marijuana holds the cure for nearly everything, including ebola.  Despite its intensive genetic alteration of the marijuana plant over the last 20 years — to make it more potent — advocates call it an herb. They don’t take responsibility for the damage pot does to the environment, or for the psychosis and mental health problems it causes in some people.   See The Medical Marijuana Hoax, Part 2: Mental Illness.

Parents Opposed to Pot believes the decision of January, 2013, by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, to keep marijuana a Schedule I drug (high potential for abuse), is correct.  Marijuana is a dangerous drug because of its perceived harmlessness,  and its cult-like following.   Americans would be wise to look into what happened when marijuana was rescheduled in Great Britain.

Marijuana can cause psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, addiction and psychosis.   In January, 2014, Dan Linn of NORML Illinois said that there has always been the cannabis and schizophrenia connection.  If NORML has known this link, how in good conscience can they push for legalization?   A typical reader may compare it to the tobacco industry, fast-food restaurants, etc.  However, marijuana-induced mental disorders can appear within a shorter period time, as opposed to other unhealthy choices that take years off the end of life.   Not everyone is susceptible to problems with marijuana and not everyone will use in excess, but the industry preaches that marijuana is harmless and non-addictive .

How They’re Pushing the Medical Marijuana Hoax

Reading the “weed blogs” gives insight into the mind of the “Pot Lobby.”   First comes decriminalization, followed by medical marijuana, followed by full legalization.  Californians voted on Proposition 215 and approved medical marijuana in 1996, because huge campaign donations funded that ballot.  The roll of money to legalize has been nonstop ever since, with billionaires such as George Soros funding the movement. Oregon and Washington had ballot initiatives for medical marijuana in 1998.  Alaska, Maine and Colorado came shortly afterwards.    Pot policy makers are going for a checkerboard pattern of states, so  that states without it will be forced to join their neighbors.

Medical marijuana businesses depend on catchy names while guaranteeing no consistency in their product.  One strain had no buyers until it changed it name to Chocolope.  This lack of consistency is a huge red flag.  As the Los Angeles Times article further explains, “Chemist Jeff Raber examined 1,500 samples of marijuana in California and found little genetic cohesion between varieties of the same name.”

Medical marijuana has always been the cover for a plan to bring full-scale legalization. The marijuana industry plays the “compassion” game to gain sympathy supporters and gradually get public acceptance, slandering members of Congress who disagree. (See The Medical Marijuana Hoax, Part 1: Do Patients Go to Jail?)  Once the industry markets itself to potential patients, many of these so-called patients get “hooked.”   The industry’s tactic of getting more people addicted has succeeded by introducing the potent strains of marijuana, and by targeting the young.

If they succeed in getting enough people high, it is easier to control their minds.   For a year or two, the pot industry has been telling us that legalization is “inevitable.” — another manipulative tactic.  The plan is that states without medical marijuana will face extreme political pressure to join their neighbors.

Medical marijuana advocates now count 23 states as having some form of medical marijuana.   However, Florida, the 4th most populous state in the country, recently rejected a medical marijuana ballot which needed 60% of the votes to pass.   Marijuana lobbyists are active in every state, and they believe full legalization is right around the corner.Weedmaster2_0003

A Cure for Everything

In early 2011, the .  At first, marijuana was promoted as an aid for cancer and AIDs treatment, because the THC in marijuana can help nausea and stimulate appetite of cancer victims.  At this time, not more than 5% medical marijuana patients actually have cancer or AIDS, as a political site fact – checker  published.   Today, the common condition those who seek medical marijuana is “pain,”  a sign the industry is trying to nurture dependence, and not cure people.  (A shot of whiskey also cures “pain.”) If those who use marijuana for “pain” treatment, sought a chiropractor instead, their treatments could be for a limited time.

Marijuana has been promoted from its status, as the cure for nausea in cancer patients, to being the cure for cancer, as marijuana advocates claim today.  The biggest argument against marijuana as a cancer cure is that pharmaceutical companies from around the world would be marketing it, if it were truly a viable cure.  The claim that marijuana cures cancer is reminiscent of the laetrile controversy  30 years ago, explained in a recent article by Robert Weiner in AlcoholismDrugAbuseWeekly.

Treating Epilepsy, Seizures, Etc.

Regardless of safety or efficacy, it is understandable how parents may want to try an alternative to the  strong cancer-fighting and epilepsy drugs.   However, we do not support any treatment for children that has THC which can alter brain chemistry.   We ask that marijuana providers provide warnings, (See our article of the Medical Marijuana Risks for children), as pharmaceutical companies are required to do.

No qualifications are needed to be a “ganjapreneur,” in today’s “green rush.”  How can we continue to allow self-proclaimed wizards of pot to hold all the cards, without warning about the side effects?  Regulation of medical marijuana has been very difficult in the West, due to the objection of the industry.  Oregon finally implemented regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries this year, but faced industry opposition.  When Washingtonians voted for pot legalization in 2012, there was a consensus that medical marijuana was not being regulated and perhaps the limits of I-502 could  bring commercial marijuana under some regulation.

Since we published our story on Medical Marijuana and PTSD,  a new story has come out about how marijuana makes PTSD symptoms worse.   A ploy of the medical marijuana industry has been using is to convince people that marijuana is the only medicine for their ailments.  They try to find people who are “chronically ill.”

“The road to HELL is paved with good intentions” explains the path of medical marijuana.  One former medical marijuana patient wrote to PopPot, explaining that after two years of using medical marijuana for an auto-immune disease, it brought on psychosis.  How can the Marijuana Policy Project, Drug Policy Alliance, NORML, Americans for Safe Access and United for Care not see that it is ethically wrong to promote something which such strong and horrific side effects—particularly in the mental health arena?   We already have a mental health crisis in the US.  Why add to it?

The vast majority of ordinary citizens who don’t use marijuana also don’t take the time to figure out the deception.