PA Cannabis Legalization Will Have Dire Consequences | RealClearPolitics

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on public-awareness campaigns urging Californians to purchase marijuana only at state-licensed pot shops.
55% : " Legalization, he said, would allow law enforcement to focus its efforts on drug traffickers moving heroin and fentanyl.
54% : Last week, Republican state Sen. Mike Regan changed his mind on marijuana legalization and joined Democratic state Rep. Amen Brown to announce a new bill to commercialize pot in Pennsylvania.
53% : Opioid-related deaths have increased year over year in states where marijuana is legal for both medicinal and recreational use.
53% : In a memorandum to his colleagues in the Pennsylvania House, Brown urged his fellow lawmakers to join him in supporting legalization to "[ensure] that an equity lens is applied and that injustices caused by enforcement of drug laws are redressed.
49% : In 2018, for example, federal and state law enforcement agencies conducted one of the largest drug busts in history in California and Colorado, finding Mexican cartels, Cuban drug traffickers, and Chinese crime syndicates operating massive marijuana operations in warehouses and private subdivisions.
48% : But what about tax revenue from legal pot - doesn't that justify legalization?
47% : Instead, today's marijuana "buds" regularly contain up to 30% THC - the main, psychoactive compound in marijuana that makes a user feel "high" - while the increasingly popular concentrates, such as dabs (inhaled through vaping devices), contain upward of 99% THC.
47% : The state legislature must say no to the commercialization of marijuana.
43% : Regan would do well to listen to his former colleagues in law enforcement who see through the marijuana industry's false promises.
42% : " The unfortunate reality, though, is that marijuana legalization has so far resulted in social injustice and worsened inequities.
41% : If Pennsylvania lawmakers really want to address the issue of marijuana arrests, the policy of decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana - already in force in many Keystone State cities - should be expanded statewide.
40% : Simply put, legalizing and commercializing marijuana has not eradicated the illicit market anywhere.
38% : In fact, it's gotten worse - and law enforcement has taken the brunt of it.
38% : In reality, African Americans remain twice as likely to be arrested for marijuana in Colorado and Washington, despite both states having legalized recreational use of the drug seven years ago.
23% : And the same week that news of the legalization proposal broke, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that the prison population in Pennsylvania had reached a 20-year low ... all without having to legalize marijuana.

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