SEATTLE — April 20 is considered by many as a high holiday for marijuana aficionados. However, there’s growing evidence it’s not as harmless as once believed.
Despite legalization across the country and widespread public approval, the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug. That’s led to limits on research regarding medical usage that could back up anecdotal evidence of marijuana helping people.
David Morse and Anita Rady are two people who believe in the benefits of cannabis use.
“I used to have a pill problem,” Morse said. “Marijuana is how I’ve overcome it.”
“I was a heroin addict for many, many years,” Rady sad. “Using marijuana, just keeping the edge off, keeps me from going back.”
However, experts in the substance-use disorder field are weary of touting positives of marijuana usage without data to back it up. State Representative Lauren Davis is one of those experts. She is the founding director of the Washington Recovery Alliance.
“I do have concerns about the continued normalization around cannabis use,” she said. “If the research backed the efficacy of cannabis as some sort of medical cure for a broad variety of ailments, then they’d be FDA approved.”
Rep. Davis said studies continue to come out showing marijuana, especially high-potency, can have an adverse impact on a person’s health. Links have been found to psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, along with suicide.
“When you can increase the potency of a product, it becomes more addictive,” she said. “A lot of the news focus is on fentanyl, but we have five times as many Americans with cannabis addiction as we do with opioid-use disorder.”
For years, Davis tried to get a law passed that would warn customers about the effects of what they’re buying in dispensaries. This session, the law passed.
“It requires posting (signs) at cannabis retail outlets these products cause psychosis and significant health effects,” she said. “We can at least start to have this conversation and people can make informed choices about what they’re putting in their bodies."