In yet another groundbreaking study (Medical Marijuana Laws and Suicides by Gender and Age) by a team at San Diego State University, researchers have discovered that there’s an undeniable link between suicide rates and marijuana consumption. By looking at existing statistics regarding states that legalized marijuana for medical use between 1990 to 2007, a very clear pattern began to emerge.
Let me simply quote the lines that struck me most:
… The legalization of medical marijuana leads to an improvement in the psychological well being of young adult males, an improvement that is reflected in fewer suicides.
And without adding any spin to the results of the study, the facts state this:
… a 10.8 percent … reduction in the suicide rate of men aged 20 through 29 years and 30 through 39 years, respectively.
This single statistic alone should be enough for anyone to seriously reconsider the Federal stance that Marijuana has no medical value whatsoever. Marijuana, even though it has been legalized for recreational use (which means it’s treated exactly the same as the far more dangerous drugs; alcohol and nicotine, which, combined, are responsible for close to 500,000 deaths per year in the United States alone), is still listed as a Schedule I on the Federal laws books. That places into a category for the most dangerous of illegal drugs such as heroin and crystal meth.
And, although its only been after billions of dollars, millions of destroyed lives, and closing in on 100 years later, the Federal Government, near the the same time this study was released, finally admitted that “marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol”. In fact, Congress has just sent a letter to President Obama urging him to reclassify marijuana!
Perhaps even more stunning, is that on the 4th of February, 2014, the Justice and Treasury Department said that they intend to “increase the availability of financial services for marijuana businesses that are licensed and regulated.” The PDF entitled “BSA Expectations Regarding Marijuana-Related Businesses” reads like a movie script. There are even specific guidelines set up for financial institutions regarding lending:
In assessing the risk of providing services to a marijuana-related business, a financial institution should conduct customer due diligence that includes:
(i) verifying with the appropriate state authorities whether the business is duly licensed and registered;
(ii) reviewing the license application (and related documentation) submitted by the business for obtaining a state license to operate its marijuana-related business;
(iii) requesting from state licensing and enforcement authorities available information about the business and related parties;
(iv) developing an understanding of the normal and expected activity for the business, including the types of products to be sold and the type of customers to be served (e.g., medical versus recreational customers);
(v) ongoing monitoring of publicly available sources for adverse information about the business and related parties;
(vi) ongoing monitoring for suspicious activity, including for any of the red flags described in this guidance;
(vii) refreshing information obtained as part of customer due diligence on a periodic basis and commensurate with the risk.
It’s shocking that such sweeping changes are occurring, yet people are barely looking up from their Facebook and Twitter accounts to notice. Not only can marijuana save lives, the Federal government has just entered the illegal drug trade under our noses, by allowing banks to fund the still-illegal marijuana industry. Yes, I think that a medically-important natural herbal product that kill less than 1 person a year should be legal alongside chemically-laden products such as tobacco and alcohol that kill close to 500,000 people per year.
Then why this disparity?
Regardless, these are world-shaking revelations that are going to dramatically alter the course of our history and our individual lives on levels we don’t yet comprehend. Marijuana saves lives. It has countless and growing medical benefits. A casual look on the internet reveals a number of articles with titles such as “Medical Marijuana: 10 Health Benefits That Legitimize Legalization“. But now, in an eerily similar situation, another medically-important, completely natural herbal product called Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is being similarly targeted as Cannabis was almost a century ago.
Kratom is being lumped in with “synthetics”; a new breed of “Designer Drugs” that are meant to mimic the effects of other illegal drugs such as, well; Cannabis. We agree that these dangerous synthetics should be outlawed, but it’s more than clear that Kratom absolutely does not belong in the same category.
Find out more on the Kratom story by reading the numerous articles here on Entheology.com.
Loading ...