00:00All around the world, marijuana is being decriminalized or even made legal, but is this really a good idea?
00:08In the online debate, the harmful sides are often downplayed.
00:12So, let's look at the three most powerful arguments against legalizing marijuana.
00:17Argument number one.
00:18In the last few decades, marijuana has been engineered to become much more potent.
00:23Today, marijuana is so potent that it's actually a strong drug that may cause psychosis.
00:29The main active ingredient of marijuana is THC, and there's strong evidence that THC is related to psychosis, regardless of other risk factors.
00:39Marijuana also contains a substance called CBD that seems to counteract this effect.
00:45It's even being tested as a treatment against psychosis and anxiety.
00:50But because it doesn't make you high, growers have gradually decreased the amount of CBD in marijuana over the last few decades while increasing THC levels.
01:00Sample testing showed that THC levels have risen from around 4% in the 1990s to nearly 12% in 2014, shifting the ratio of THC to CBD from 1 to 14 in 1995 to about 1 to 80 in 2014.
01:16It's unclear how precise those tests were, however.
01:20Overall, recent findings suggest that the more marijuana you consume and the stronger it is, the higher your risk of developing psychosis.
01:29But how high is the risk of psychosis for the general population?
01:33A study from Britain found that while marijuana use has risen significantly between 1996 and 2005, the number of schizophrenia cases, a type of psychosis, remained stable.
01:45The risk of marijuana-induced psychosis remains the highest for people who already have a high risk of psychosis to begin with.
01:53For them, it seems more likely that marijuana speeds up the development of their condition rather than causing it, as far as we know right now.
02:01So the reasoning goes, if fewer people have access to marijuana, the lower the risk of marijuana-induced psychosis.
02:08But actually, you could argue that precisely because marijuana is illegal, more people will end up with psychosis.
02:15Prohibition makes illegal drugs stronger and more potent, because this way you can ship more product in a smaller space and sell it at a greater profit.
02:24This is what happened during the prohibition of alcohol in the US, where hard liquor became the norm.
02:30And the same is happening with marijuana now.
02:34Imagine a world where liquor is the only alcohol available.
02:38You have the choice of either not drinking at all or getting much drunker than you would like to.
02:43This is the situation for many marijuana smokers today.
02:47People didn't stop drinking during prohibition and the numbers show that laws don't deter people from using marijuana.
02:54We can't make marijuana go away, but we can make it safer.
02:58If marijuana were legal, there would be more options for consumers and regulators could, for example, insist on a high level of CBD.
03:07Just like most people don't drink an after-work bottle of vodka, many people would gladly consume the after-work beer version of marijuana.
03:16Argument 2. Marijuana is a gateway drug.
03:19If it's legalized, there will be a spike in the use of much more dangerous drugs.
03:25A 2015 study found that about 45% of lifelong marijuana users took some other illegal drug at some point.
03:33Legalizing marijuana could reinforce this trend.
03:36As more young people try legal marijuana, they might end up trying harder drugs.
03:41But it turns out that the real gateway to drug use comes much earlier, cigarettes.
03:48One study showed that teens who started smoking before the age of 15 were 80% more likely to use illegal drugs than those who didn't.
03:56And a 2007 study found that teenagers between 12 and 17 who smoked were 3 times more likely to binge drink,
04:047 times more likely to have used drugs like heroin or cocaine, and were also 7 times more likely to resort to marijuana.
04:13But if that's the case, how could making more drugs legal stop the use of hard drugs?
04:19At first, it's important to acknowledge that people don't use drugs because they're legal or not.
04:24If you want to buy any drug, you'll always find someone happy to sell.
04:28The real question is why do people develop an unhealthy relationship with drugs at all?
04:34Studies show that certain conditions make people especially vulnerable to drugs and addiction.
04:40A difficult childhood, early trauma, low social status, depression, even genetic factors.
04:47Which drug they get addicted to is more often than not a matter of chance.
04:54Addicts take drugs to escape their problems, but drugs don't solve any of those problems and instead become a new problem.
05:01But punishing people for their unhealthy coping mechanisms doesn't change anything about the underlying causes either.
05:09So some argue we need to take a completely different route.
05:13In 2001, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe, so it was desperate enough to try something radical.
05:21Possession and use of all illegal drugs was decriminalized.
05:25You would no longer be arrested. Instead, authorities launched a major health campaign.
05:31People who were found with a small amount were referred to support services and got help with treatment and harm reduction.
05:37Drug use was seen as a chronic disease, not a crime.
05:41The results were stunning. The number of people who tried drugs and kept using them fell from 44% to 28% by 2012.
05:51The use of hard drugs decreased, as well as HIV and hepatitis infections and overdoses.
05:57Making drugs legal might overall help society much more than it harms it.
06:04Argument number three.
06:06Marijuana is addictive and unhealthy. It needs to remain illegal to keep harm at a minimum.
06:13While marijuana addiction is more psychological than physical, it is still a real problem.
06:19The demand for treatment for marijuana addiction has more than doubled in the past decade alone.
06:25In total, about 10% of people who try marijuana will become addicted.
06:30This is also related to higher THC levels.
06:33A study released in 2017 tracked the potency of marijuana in Dutch coffee shops over a period of 16 years.
06:40For every 1% increase in THC, 60 more people entered treatment nationwide.
06:47In terms of negative health effects, some studies linked marijuana use to increased blood pressure and lung problems,
06:53while a 2016 study found that marijuana use was unrelated to physical health problems, except for a higher risk of gum disease.
07:01Some studies showed that marijuana use alters teenagers' brains and decreases their intelligence,
07:07but when more recent studies took drinking and smoking into account, the results were inconclusive.
07:13Overall, research shows that taking any drugs while the brain is still in development is bad for you.
07:21But the truth is we don't know yet how unhealthy marijuana is.
07:25We need more funding for research, which is hard to get while marijuana remains illegal.
07:30We can put what we know into perspective, though.
07:3316% of people who consume alcohol become alcoholics, and 32% of people who try cigarettes become smokers.
07:41We know for sure alcohol affects your brain, destroys your liver and causes cancer,
07:47while tobacco clogs your arteries, destroys your lungs and also causes cancer.
07:523.3 million people die from alcohol abuse each year, while smoking kills more than 6 million people.
07:59Nobody is suggesting tobacco and alcohol are harmless just because they're legal.
08:04Also, nobody is seriously proposing to prohibit them even though they are extremely dangerous.
08:10Legality is a way to exercise some control over them, especially when it comes to protecting young people.
08:17It's often much harder to buy legal drugs for teenagers than to buy illegal ones.
08:22Official sellers can get hefty fines and lose their license if they sell to underage kids.
08:28Legality creates incentives here that drug dealers can't exploit.
08:34So making marijuana legal doesn't mean endorsing it. It means taking responsibility for the risks it poses.
08:42It could also open the floodgates to tons of new research that shows us how harmful it really is and to whom.
08:49Conclusion
08:52Marijuana is a drug, and just like any other drug, it has negative consequences for a sizable portion of the people who use it.
09:00It is not harmless.
09:02The best way to protect society from its negative consequences seems to be legalization and regulation.
