Keegan MacDonald

I guess we’ll join in on the Ricketts hate train. But only to use him as an example.
Governor Ricketts of Nebraska made national news this week with the quote, “If you legalize marijuana, you’re gonna kill your kids.”
This is followed by him saying it is backed by data. When asked to clarify, his office pointed to studies that only provide association. Nothing even close to causal, let alone correlative.
Yesterday, Ricketts continued his venting process, showing how it has affected elementary school kids in Colorado.
Weed is coming to Nebraska. A vote to legalize will probably be coming in 2022, and another proposal was introduced by a State Senator that would create a framework for legalizing, according to the Journal Star.
That legislation is unlikely to pass, but time and time again we see that when it comes to the public, voting in favor of legalization will be the outcome.
This is why the lashing out over on Team Ricketts. His tactics are classic fear-mongering. You’re gonna kill your kids. The “data” cited is flimsy and the language used is just as effective as it is dangerous, as we’ve seen from over fifty years of prohibition. In this world there is no middle ground. There is either banishment, or your kids will die. No such thing as regulation and control.
Thankfully, this time feels a little different. It feels more like the lashing out of someone who is losing ground quickly as opposed to someone who can influence actual policy. His framework is being questioned, and only effort left is hyperbole.

Cannabis is rapidly growing in relevancy across the world.
In an article at Bloomberg, writer Tiffany Kary describes just how important that Mexico legalization is.
“With a population approaching 130 million, Mexico is on the cusp of becoming the largest legal recreational market in the world,” says Kary. “That could pressure the U.S. to follow suit, since it will be sandwiched between Mexico and Canada, countries that both allow cannabis use.”
She also states that Mexico is especially suited for exporting cannabis, considering many multinational pharmaceutical, alcohol and consumer products companies are already in the country. This means high-quality manufacturing can happen with less cost.
Growing optimism is also seen in recent deals, including Curaleaf, the largest manufacturer in the US, buying Emmac Life Sciences in order to start expanding into the European Union. They’re expected to start selling CBD and cannabis products quickly in the continent.
As promise grows for the viability of legal pot, more large scale deals like this will be more and more common.
Read the source here.

This is a bit of some older news, but we didn’t cover it at the time and it’s just such great food for thought.
A study was published back in January that finds a correlation between increased pot shops and decreased opioid-related deaths.
Specifically, counties where the dispensaries increased from 1 to 2 saw a 17% drop in opioid fatalities. Bring that dispensary number to 3, and the deaths drop another 8.5%.
“If consumers use cannabis and opioids for pain management, increasing the supply of legal cannabis might have implications for fentanyl demand and opioid related mortality rates overall,” says the study.
It is encouraging to see proof that there is demand for using legal cannabis as a substitute for currently illicit opioids like heroin or fentanyl. There is little doubt that it’s a safer option and generally much less addictive.
As more studies like this are released that shed light on the large benefits of having legally available marijuana in counties with drug issues, we’ll have more and more statistical backing of the complex ways in which marijuana can save lives and truly effect communities for the better.
Read the study here.