The Growing Marijuana Crisis

            The rush to get on board the crowded train of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to oppose President Trump in 2020 is almost comical. To distinguish themselves from the crowd, the would-be nominees take on the most extreme positions: abolish ICE, defund Homeland Security, confiscate rich people’s assets, Medicare for all, ban fossil fuels, and so on. Climate change has been declared the number one universal crisis requiring drastic measures, or else we will all be dead in 10 years.

            Some have sensibly identified the opioid crisis as a serious threat. But there is one threat that not a single candidate mentions: the disturbing number of deaths than can be traced back to the increased use of cannabis, especially among our young people aged 18 to 25.

            Advocates for the legalization of recreational marijuana minimize the dangers of cannabis addiction. Yet, there is mounting evidence of the connection between cannabis addiction and psychosis, a leading cause of violence. Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon, the first four states to legalize recreational use of marijuana, have experienced a combined increase of 37 percent in murders and 25 percent for aggravated assaults since legalization.

            True, more research must be done to connect cannabis addiction with violence, but statistics on this connection are already trickling in not only from states where marijuana is legal, but from states where it is not. Texas, for instance, has provided data on child abuse and neglect that point to a greater connection between cannabis and this type of psychosis-induced violence.

            There is no denying that today’s marijuana is far more potent than ever before. In fact, studies estimate that the 1.5% of Americans who have a cannabis addiction now account for 11% of all psychosis cases in emergency rooms. In states like Colorado, emergency rooms physicians have had to become experts in dealing with cannabis-induced psychosis.

            Simply put, we ought to be very concerned about the growing incidence of mental illness among young adults who are heavy users of cannabis. It far outweighs climate change not only in its seriousness, but also in its immediacy. Democrats who aspire to the presidency and who boast about their ability to reach young voters should take note.

Fertility Rate at Risk

            Back in the 90s I spent a week in Beijing on business and another with my wife as tourists. We have great memories of that trip and many images still fresh in our minds, like the endless rows of bicycles lined up on city sidewalks, the army of women with long brooms keeping the streets clean, and the ubiquitous vendors aggressively hawking food and merchandise of all kinds. But one sight in particular got my wife’s attention: mothers strolling in the city parks with only one child, almost always a boy. This was the period of China’s strictly enforced One-Child policy, one of whose nefarious consequences was the abortion—and sometimes infanticide—of millions of girl babies.

            The One-Child policy, meant to keep China’s exploding population in check, proved to be a huge mistake. It has since been reversed, but because of the preference for boy babies exacerbated by the policy, its effect is now starkly evident. There are an estimated 333 million more men in China than women of child-bearing age. Worse, because of China’s rapid economic development, many of these women are entering the workforce and becoming career women rather than mothers. As a result, weddings in China have gone down for five consecutive years and there have been fewer births than in previous years—two million fewer in last year alone. China is now looking at the growth of an aging population no longer balanced by a corresponding birth rate. The government fears that in the long run there won’t be enough workers to sustain China’s economic growth. And this poses a threat to China’s dream of becoming the world’s greatest economic power.

            China is not the only country facing this problem. It is worse in Germany, for example, and much worse in Japan. But the United States is not far behind. It takes 2.1 births per woman for the population to replace itself. However, the fertility rate in this country last year was 1.76. If it weren’t for immigration, the population of the United States would be in decline.

            The widespread practice of abortion is not helping. Last year Planned Parenthood alone performed 332,757 of them. It is an ironic coincidence that our booming economy produced over 300,00 new jobs last month, many of which are likely to remain unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled workers to fill them. There are many thousands of Central American migrants who would love to have a shot at those jobs, if only we would let them in. But then that’s another problem that needs to be dealt with.