LETTERS: Why Newton residents should ban recreational marijuana shops – News – Newton TAB

Evidence-Based Reasons to Vote No on Opt Out

As a Psychology Professor, I teach students to be critical consumers of research so they can be informed citizens. I am dismayed by the lack of evidence- based arguments for opting out of retail recreational marijuana stores in Newton.
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One argument is evidence-based. Heavy marijuana use can negatively affect adolescents. However, evidence indicates that retail stores do not increase teens’ marijuana use. “Research to date has not documented an increase in cannabis use by adolescents in the United States overall or in those states that enacted new marijuana laws” (JAMA Psychiatry. 2017;74(6):559-560). Highly relevant to the opt out petition is a study of over 10,000 Colorado students before and after recreational marijuana.legalization. Proximity of stores was not significantly associated with perceived ease of access to marijuana (Subst Use Misuse. 2018 Feb 23;53(3):451-456). A Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment survey of high school students further revealed no increase in marijuana use since legalization(Subst Use Misuse. 2018 Feb 23;53(3):451-456). Retailers comply with laws restricting sales to individuals 21 or older, shown by decoy checks in Colorado ( J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2016 Nov;77(6):868-872 )and Oregon (Oregon Liquor control commission, December 20, 2017). The foregoing evidence provides no basis for concluding that retail sales of recreational marijuana in Newton will increase use by teenagers.

Another argument for Opt Out is that young children may ingest edible marijuana. Such unfortunate events reflect negligence in the home and have nothing to do with retail stores in Newton. Driving risk is another specious argument. Unless people use marijuana immediately after purchasing it, a dubious assumption, such risk is no greater with retail stores in Newton than with stores elsewhere. Indeed, one could argue that retail stores in Newton will mitigate the dangers of driving under the influence, since people can walk to stores.

Please vote NO to Opt Out. A no vote will honor the votes to legalize recreational marijuana cast by the people of Newton, and evidence indicates that voting NO will not jeopardize the health of our children.

Leslie Zebrowitz
Pine Crest Road

Psychiatric symptoms

I am a psychiatrist on the staff of a large psychiatric research and treatment center in a nearby community. My responsibilities include directing a clinical psychopharmacology research program and treating patients in a well-known and quite outstanding residential program for individuals who require extended rehabilitative care following an episode of serious mental illness.

The vast majority of our admissions are people in their 20s who developed serious psychiatric symptoms during an extended period of heavy marijuana use, often continuing right up to the time of admission. There are certainly cases in which marijuana had no role, and life adversities or some other precipitant caused the onset of illness, or mental illness appeared completely out of the blue. But it is astonishing how frequently young adults with psychiatric vulnerabilities slide from health into illness through the path of heavy cannabis use.

For individuals at low risk for mental illness occasional pot smoking does no harm. However, vulnerability to mental illness makes marijuana use risky, and such vulnerability is not rare in the community and may be quite inconspicuous in any given individual prior to the onset of illness. Psychiatric vulnerability has an important genetic component best assessed through a comprehensive family history seeking evidence of possible mental illness extending far beyond the immediate family.

It has been conclusively demonstrated by large studies featuring extensive diagnostic interviews of thousands of randomly selected non-help-seeking individuals throughout the country that psychiatric disorders, current and past, are very widespread in the United States. The likelihood of a young adult’s vulnerability to psychiatric illness may lie buried in their family history and may be higher than the individual’s personal history would suggest.

In considering how to cast your votes regarding the wisdom of permitting recreational marijuana shops in Newton, please consider the high prevalence of heavy marijuana use immediately preceding the onset of major mental illness in young adults, and the fact that genetic vulnerability to developing psychiatric disorders is not rare in young adults, even those who have enjoyed excellent prior mental health.

Dr. J. Alexander (Alec) Bodkin

Waban Avenue, Waban

Questions about shops

I have treated addiction and psychiatric disorders for 35 years. I have concerns about the ballot question opening marijuana shops.

Availability:

As director of the Newton Youth Drug and Alcohol Program in the 1980s — a cooperative effort between the school department, the District Court and the Newton Guidance Clinic — I know that youth access to marijuana and alcohol comes from “black market” sales at school and from adults’ supplies. I fear greater access by adults will put more of the product in the hands of our youth.

Violence and crime

I chaired the Newton Substance Abuse Coalition which had representatives from the school department, police, fire, clergy, social service organizations, Newton Wellesley Hospital, parents and other groups. We created programs in the schools and community hoping to reduce access and increase education. We helped create the “Youth Risk Survey” and implement funding for substance abuse counselors at the high schools. We found over the years that crime and violence grew with greater availability. Newton’s location and easy access by T makes us vulnerable to the influences of drug sales and associated violence by individuals coming from neighboring cities. This is a continuing concern. The black market tends to grow where legal marijuana is available. The underground market is able to sell the product for less because they don’t abide by taxation or regulations.

Disorders

Decades ago addiction was seen as related to substances of abuse. Now medical research implicates compulsive behaviors affecting life management, such as overeating, gambling, etc., rather than concentrating on other important relationships. Marijuana use became a means of “self-medication” for many. We have clinic patients with other psychiatric problems as a direct result of compulsive marijuana. We also have opiate-addicted patients who try using marijuana to prevent relapse — and failing.

Lack of comprehensive research

We have few definitive answers on how marijuana affects the brain of youth and adults. As we observe patients in our addiction treatment facilities, we see only detrimental effects of marijuana use on individuals and families. To make this substance more available seems irresponsible and problematic for our community.

Matt Green

Sameem Associates Inc., clinical director

Newton

Facts about Colorado’s marijuana experience

Pot advocates say Colorado a model for marijuana legalization. But Colorado’s U.S. attorney, Bob Troyer, who leads other U.S. attorneys around the country on marijuana issues, gave the facts in the Denver Post on Sept. 28, 2018 (https://denverpost.com/2018/09/28/colorado-marijuana-commercialization). Here are highlights of what he hears and says traveling the country:

— Do they tout Colorado’s tax revenue from commercialized marijuana?

· No, because there’s been no net gain: marijuana tax revenue adds less than one percent to Colorado’s coffers, which is more than washed out by the public health, public safety and regulatory costs of commercialization.

— Do they highlight commercialization’s elimination of a marijuana black market?

· No, because Colorado’s black market has actually exploded after commercialization: we have become a source-state, a theater of operation for sophisticated international drug trafficking and money laundering organizations from Cuba, China, Mexico and elsewhere.

— Do they promote our success in controlling production or containing marijuana within our borders?

· No, because last year alone the regulated industry produced 6.4 metric tons of unaccounted-for marijuana, and over 80,000 black market plants were found on Colorado’s federal lands.

— Does the industry trumpet its promised decrease in alcohol use?

· No, because Colorado’s alcohol consumption has steadily climbed since marijuana commercialization.

— How about the industry’s claim that marijuana will cure opioid addiction?

· No, a Lancet study found that heavy marijuana users end up with more pain and are more likely to abuse opioids.

Yet on that last point, the marijuana industry is trying to exploit our nation’s opioid tragedy to push its own controlled substance as a panacea. Why? It’s a profit opportunity. Which is also how they see our youth. Which is why in Colorado they now sell marijuana-consumption devices that avoid detection at schools, like vape pens made to look like high-lighters and eye-liner.

These are the same marketers who advertise higher and higher potency marijuana gummy candy, marijuana suppositories and marijuana “intimate creams.” This aggressive marketing makes perfect sense in addiction industries like tobacco, alcohol, opioids and marijuana. These industries make the vast majority of their profits from heavy users, and so they strive to create and maintain this user market. Especially when users are young and their brains are most vulnerable to addiction.

Most of our neighboring communities have banned pots shops. Newton should too!

Vote No on the sham 2-4 “limit.”

Vote Yes to Ban Pot Shops in Newton — Opt Out!

Dr. Solomon A. Gabbay

Marijuana tax projections over-stated

The Massachusetts Department of Health has done the only known analysis on the subject of potential local tax revenues for recreational marijuana stores in a report produced by UMass, Mathematica Policy Research and JSI Research. This report finds, “the estimated median local tax revenue over the first two years of retail sales ranges from $72,835 in suburban communities with a low population density, to $582,899 in urban communities with a high population density.” Since these projections are over two years, then the high end estimate would be $291,449 annually.

Some in Newton are speculating that taxes and fees from marijuana sales could be as high as $2 million per year. However, two-thirds of that $2 million figure are “Community Impact fees” over and above the statutory 3 percent sales tax. These Community Impact fees can only be used for direct expenses the city incurs related to the operation of recreational marijuana stores such as public safety to direct traffic around stores, inspections, prevention programs during the first few years of operation only, etc. These Community Impact fees cannot go into the general fund for other purposes. Therefore, the actual amount projected to go into the general fund is closer to the amount in the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the state is projecting for Newton.

Additionally, these Community Impact fees may not be allowed by the Cannabis Control Commission after the initial five-year period, unless the city can show that they have on-going expenses directly related to the operation of the stores.

Newton voters should not be fooled into thinking marijuana stores will be a gold mine for city coffers. Most of the taxes and fees received can only be used for expenses directly related to hosting the stores. Meanwhile, we will also suffer from the non-monetary issues of increased youth use and addiction associated with the commercialization and promotion of recreational marijuana in Newton. It’s a bad idea.

Laurie Palepu

Chestnut Street, West Newton

Pediatrician states concerns

As a pediatrician, I would like to add my voice to the chorus of pediatricians, child psychiatrists, child psychologists and other clinicians who have been writing to the Tab over the last several weeks concerned about marijuana commercialization in Newton. Commercialization is a fundamentally different question than legalization. Voting for 2-4 stores (which can be increased to eight by the City Council at any time no matter what the voters in Newton prefer) or moving directly to eight, will introduce high potency, highly addictive commercialized marijuana into our community. The high potency marijuana with THC of 20 percent or higher, which is generally being sold in these stores, also in edible forms as soda and candy, which cannot be locally regulated, has greater potential to addict consumers, especially those with vulnerable younger brains. These stores are not interested in the public health of Newton, but rather in creating long term customers. Accessibility is a risk factor for addiction and having the stores normalized and accepted in Newton will change the experience of the children and teens growing up in this city. Weston, Wayland, Dedham, Needham and Wellesley have all opted out or are in the process of opting out of commercial retail marijuana stores, and those consumers will flock to Newton to buy. This will create potential traffic and parking problems, and potentially some impaired drivers as well. In Washington State, drivers involved in fatal crashes testing positive for active THC increased 48 percent in 2014 (cannabis was legalized there in December 2012).

For these reasons, I join my colleagues in Newton and plan to vote No to 2-4 stores, and Yes to ban pot shops in Newton.

Esther Israel

Alden Street, Newton Centre