Jim Dey: Legal-marijuana advocates overwhelming skeptics

May 23—The Biden administration made an announcement last week that left Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker enraptured.

It revealed plans to downgrade marijuana from the most restrictive Schedule I category of dangerous drugs to the far more benign Schedule III.

President Joe Biden explained the decision by saying that "far too many lives have been upended because of a failed approach to marijuana, and I'm committed to righting those wrongs."

"At last," Pritzker responded.

The downgrade is considered a major boost for those in the business of selling the drug and taxing the proceeds.

Why?

Reclassification means that under federal tax law, legal marijuana sellers will be able to deduct business expenses, something they're barred from doing under marijuana's Schedule I status.

That means a big profit boost for purveyors of legal weed.

Writing for Illinois Playbook, Shia Kapos suggested reclassification will "open new doors in Illinois — seen by many as the Silicon Valley of the cannabis industry."

She noted three of the country's largest marijuana companies — Cresco Labs, Verano and Green Thumbs Industries — operate in Illinois.

Schedule I drugs are considered the most dangerous and habit-forming substances. Schedule III drugs are considered to have a low to moderate risk of abuse.

Not only is the category difference substantial, but legal marijuana also is touted as having many medical benefits.

Existing and growing demand generates huge profits and — this is what makes the governor drool — sends more and more tax revenue pouring into state coffers.

The reclassification represents another political victory for cannabis supporters, who have persuaded legislators in 24 states to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

Changing attitudes also have resulted in a perverse attitude toward personal health. A 2022 survey by the National Institutes of Health revealed more people ages 19-30 smoked marijuana than cigarettes in the preceding month.

Not everyone, however, celebrates cannabis' march to respectability.

Harvard psychobiology Professor Bertha Madras said the move has been a "political," not a "scientific" decision.

She said that's "tragic" because of marijuana's negative impact on the brain, its addictive nature and potential to cause "schizophrenia."

Indeed, Madras cites a long list of cannabis' negative effects that make it a far greater health threat than its defenders concede.

"The benefits have been exaggerated, the risks have been minimized and the skeptics in the scientific community have been ignored," she was quoted as saying in a May 10 Wall Street Journal article.

Dr. Lawrence Jeckel, a Champaign psychiatrist, shares Madras' concerns.

He said his "experience" is that "the idea of pot as therapy is a lie" that has encouraged "people, especially psych patients to 'treat' themselves" and, in the process, made their "anxiety and thought disorders worse."

Further, Jeckel said he's seen "individuals who have developed 'cannabis induced psychosis,'" a condition that is difficult to treat because "such individuals also have a habit of experimenting with other drugs such as stimulants."

Young adults with pre-existing mental-health issues are considered especially vulnerable to psychosis induced by cannabis consumption.

Madras said her research has shown that marijuana's medicinal benefits are virtually nil. She said she found cannabis may be useful in treating "neuropathic pain" caused by damage to nerve endings, but that's only one of more than 100 benefits cannabis supporters claim.

As evidenced by the legalization movement and the effusive support for it by prominent politicians, like Pritzker, warnings like those from Madras have been broadly rejected.

But the dangers she cites and the reasons she gives for doing so should be hard to ignore. Caveat emptor.