Marijuana Legalization is Back on the Agenda

Some members of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) are currently working on a proposal regarding medical marijuana that would harmonize legislation concerning the substance within the European Union. After amendments by MEPs, the text must be submitted to the European Commission for approval so that it can be discussed and amended by Parliament and the Council of Ministers, or directly adopted. If the resolution is adopted at the end of the long process and becomes EU legal norm, it would force member states to adopt the regulation.

However, forcing member states is highly controversial regarding such a narcotic, psychedelic substance whose long-term effects of consumption are not yet precisely clarified, and numerous studies point to negative risk factors of consumption.

Behind the lobby of the psychoactive substance used worldwide, billions of dollars now stand, and in terms of popularity, it ranks fifth after tobacco, caffeine, alcohol and betel palm. The struggle is persistent: for example, in 2010, American businessman George Soros donated one million dollars to the organization that campaigned for marijuana legalization in California. They still lost the referendum held in autumn 2010 about legalizing weed, but in the 2016 referendum, California cannabis supporters already won with a 57% majority. In December 2012, Washington state – as the first US state – enacted marijuana use into law after 56% voted for legalization in a referendum held on local popular initiative. (The use of the substance remains illegal at the federal level according to federal laws). In Colorado state, also in autumn 2012, a referendum was held on popular initiative, where a 55% majority voted for legal cannabis.

Soros also uses European Union institutions in the cannabis struggle, for example, a publication titled "Reliable Allies in the European Parliament 2014-2019" – leaked in August 2016 by DC Leaks from the Open Society Foundations' internal database – lists 226 out of 751 MEPs as reliable people of the Soros empire. The billionaire participates annually in EU forums and consultations, having quasi-free access to the President and Commissioners of the European Commission in Brussels. Incidentally, the President of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, Romanian Adina Vălean, is also on the reliability "Soros list," and the billionaire businessman's influence is continuously felt in the body's work.

It's worth mentioning some relevant medical research. Research psychologist Rebecca Kuepper and her colleagues' ten-year follow-up study conducted before 2010, for example, examined 14-24 year-old individuals who had not yet been in a psychotic state during their lives and the research examined marijuana use as a risk factor regarding the appearance of occasional psychotic symptoms. Based on the study results, Kuepper also considers it possible that marijuana use could theoretically increase the risk of developing psychotic disorders with persistently present psychotic symptoms. It's no coincidence that the gateway drug theory has not been completely refuted either, meaning marijuana use may increase the likelihood that its user will later try "harder" drugs. Rather, this seems to be reinforced by the practice of prevention regarding juvenile marijuana use: young marijuana users must always be considered in prevention campaigns as belonging to the risk group endangered by narcotics.

If indirectly, the gateway drug theory is strengthened by the fact that extensive longitudinal studies conducted in the United Kingdom and New Zealand from 2015 to 2017 showed a clear correlation between marijuana use and the increased probability of disorders appearing during later drug use. One such study – conducted by Bristol researchers – also showed that one-fifth of 13-18 year-old British adolescents had occasionally or regularly used cannabis, and these young people were more likely to progress toward behaviors related to harmful drug use in early adulthood.

Marijuana legalization carries serious health risks in the medium and long term in individual societies. A study by researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, recently found that in states where medical marijuana use was legalized and general marijuana use also increased, excessive alcohol consumption also rose among adults aged 21 and older. The increase in excessive alcohol consumption is concerning because while marijuana itself carries direct health and social risks, alcohol causes numerous additional public health and safety problems, such as liver damage, fatal car accidents or violent behaviors that encourage crime and destabilize society. A study released in October 2018 by the American Insurance Institute for Highway Safety clearly showed that in three federal states that legalized marijuana (Colorado, Washington, and Oregon), there are 5.2% more traffic accidents than in neighboring US states.

Regular use of marijuana, or "weed," can lead to psychological and mental disorders and may dynamically activate any existing latent predisposition to mental illness in many people. Mass use of the substance may also carry risks that we still see based on current research or cannot precisely demonstrate their appearance. Undoubtedly: the strong economic and political background lobby wants to accelerate research positively supporting cannabis use, as there is also such intention in the European Parliament's specialized committee, since the hoped-for future mass business of commercially excellently utilizable dried, unfertilized hemp flowers seems almost inexhaustible.

The domestic legal environment prohibits the distribution of cannabis, recreational use of the substance, and unauthorized medical use. The Criminal Code (Btk.) in effect since 2013 tightened penalty rates related to narcotics (including marijuana): minor consumption of the substance – if no more serious crime is committed – is punishable by up to two years imprisonment for misdemeanor according to § 178 (6). This can only be avoided through so-called diversion: the drug user undertakes to participate in six-month treatment, and if they can prove this within a year, the proceedings against them are terminated. In 2016, about seventy percent of diversion participants received treatment following marijuana use.

Stopping the marijuana lobby increasingly dominating Brussels is a national interest: with the possible health risks caused by the drug in a country where every eleventh fellow citizen is already an alcoholic, it would place serious burdens on the social system and healthcare.