What Big Pot doesn’t want you to know about costs of legalizing marijuana

New York Post 13 June 2019
Family First Comment: People shouldn’t get locked up for having a joint in their pocket. Legislators can look to advance criminal justice reforms concerning possession of small amounts of marijuana without throwing the doors open to a predatory industry that will have significant and irreconcilable impact on public health. That’s real social justice.

Lobbyists and lawmakers everywhere like to make bold-but-reality-challenged claims to advance legislation. But in its push to legalize commercial weed, the marijuana industry has taken legislative myth-peddling to brazen new lows.

New York’s lawmakers have a few days left to show the nation they won’t be duped. Here are some of the tallest of the tales that have swirled around Albany, thanks to the pot industry:

First, the industry claims high-potency commercial weed will provide social justice and economic opportunity for minority communities.

African American legislators in New Jersey didn’t fall for that, and their New York counterparts shouldn’t, either. The pot industry — backed by Big Tobacco and wealthy, mostly white Wall Street investors — is looking to line its own pockets. These multinational forces aren’t getting into pot to help minority entrepreneurs.

Remember when liquor stores and smoke shops were clustered in largely low-income and minority neighborhoods? Pot shops selling high-potency drugs engineered to create regular customers won’t lead to any more empowerment and opportunity for urban populations than clustered vice stores did.

There has been no quantifiable positive economic impact for such communities in legalized states. In fact, taxpayers and communities have had to shoulder an estimated $4.50 in social costs for every $1 in revenue, according to researchers at the Centennial Institute.
READ MORE: https://nypost.com/2019/06/13/what-big-pot-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-costs-of-legalizing-marijuana/