FOX News host Laura Ingraham examines how legalizing marijuana has fared in California on "The Ingraham Angle."
LAURA INGRAHAM: It was supposed to be a model for the rest of the nation. Big venture capital firms raised $25 million to help pass California's Prop 64 back in 2016. And they argued that marijuana legalization would not only keep people out of jail for using small amounts of weed, but it would also reduce crime by squeezing out the illegal drug market. Well, that didn't work out. Far from reducing illegal weed, those efforts instead allowed the black market to flourish, after legalization, with the help of organized crime operations that run massive unlicensed farms and storefront dispensaries in plain view, bringing crime and terrorizing nearby residents. And those raided by police are often up and running again within weeks or even days.
BIPARTISAN BILL WOULD ALLOW PEOPLE WHO CONSUMED MARIJUANA TO GAIN FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT
Now, you know it kills the L.A. Times to publish these stories, but the broken promises of legalization with the violence and the illegal grows, they're just impossible to ignore. And what's happening in all the other states that legalized it? Well, in Maine, where adult use of cannabis is legal and sales are regulated, the Chinese have stepped in to undercut prices by starting their own illegal operations. And it's so bad that now state lawmakers and Maine's two senators are asking the feds for help. Now, of course, most of these politicians still aren't against cannabis legalization. They just want to protect the legal market from being again, undercut by the criminals. But again, that's what they promised legalization would do. And you walk around Manhattan lately as I have, well, that horrid pot smell-- it's everywhere. Little kids have to breathe it in. It's like we're all walking around in a big pit of burning manure mixed with skunk smell.
This year, states like New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania are all likely to vote to legalize marijuana. And remember, California wants to experiment even more despite its own experience with this by legalizing other mind-altering drugs. The state Senate there just approved a bill to decriminalize so-called magic mushrooms and psychedelics. "Oh, they're all good for you." Well, keep them numb and dumb and hope that you collect more in tax revenue than you lose in human lives and revenue from all the cannabis linked to overdose deaths, mental health problems, car crashes, education loss, and of course, the added expense of law enforcement. Now, of course, libertarians think that the problem with cannabis legalization is that again, it didn't go far enough. So get all the other drugs out there, too. They want all drugs legalized, even fentanyl.
But maybe we should ask Oregon about its own experience with allowing hard drug use in public places. Portland went from 413 shooting incidents in 2019 before legalization to 1,309 afterward. Now, no wonder Portland city leaders are trying to reverse course there. Turn around the legalization of hard drug use in public. Overdoses are multiplying. So are a long list of social pathologies there. But the fact is, it's not just hard drugs. Talk to addicts. Almost every one of them started on weed. Despite the lies we're told about how it's never a gateway drug. Well, it's true, it's not a gateway drug for everyone, or maybe even most people. But it is for most of those sad souls that you see staring into space, muttering to themselves in the streets.
And for all the liberals who love to talk about the science, the science on what regular THC use does to the developing brain, well, it's devastating. From Psychology Today, highly concentrated marijuana products are causing cannabis-induced psychosis paranoia and confusion. Increased marketing on social media may send a message to teens that cannabis is safe and harmless.
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