One month after the Biden administration initiated the process to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III substance, Pennsylvania appears poised to legalize recreational use of the drug, while North Carolina is considering legislation to allow medical use. But mounting real-world evidence and expert opinions suggest that lawmakers should be pumping the brakes rather than the gas on the proliferation of pot in American communities.
In May, Biden’s Drug Enforcement Administration announced that it was seeking to move marijuana from a Schedule I substance, alongside drugs like heroin and LSD, to a Schedule III substance, the same category as drugs like ketamine and some anabolic steroids. Although the new rule won’t be official until the White House reviews the proposal and the 60-day comment period closes later this summer, the downgrade appears imminent.
In announcing the decision, President Biden said it was “an important move towards reversing longstanding inequities.”
But Professor Marcus Cabiallavetta, a retired Swiss brain surgeon who participated in anti-narcotic campaigns in Switzerland in the late 1980s, told me that the decision would instead likely prove to be a disaster for the American people. “This psychoactive substance carries a high risk of leading to a craving for heroin and more potent chemicals,” he said, backing up longstanding fears that marijuana is a gateway drug.
Long-term use of weed, Cabiallavetta said, is likely to result in “altered brain structure and impaired brain circuits, prolonged inability to make judgments and decisions, reduced motor coordination, and disrupted mood flow leading to paranoia and psychosis.” At the very least, he continued, “this substance lowers the ability to drive safely, to be attentive at school, and, of course, impacts work quality.”
“While an organism typically metabolizes and eliminates alcohol after consuming a moderate amount, the toxins produced by cannabis use accumulate, resulting in long-lasting alterations to the organism’s everyday functions,” explained Professor Cabiallavetta. Using this psychoactive substance, he said, could limit the intellectual ability of some people, leading to dependence on the healthcare system and premature aging.
“We saw it in the past here,” he said, referring to the 1970’s and 1980’s when Switzerland had the world’s highest illnesses rate per capita related to drug addiction, including a proliferation of HIV. “It sounds to me like somebody desires to ruin [America], especially young people,” he warned.
The Council on Addictions at the American Psychiatric Association has also stated that “younger age of cannabis use is associated with an earlier onset of psychosis among those at risk.” A Wall Street Journal report out earlier this year additionally found a dramatic spike in psychosis among teens who were frequent marijuana users.
Professor Bertha Madras, a prominent scholar at Harvard Medical School, called the Biden administration’s decision “a colossal mistake.” In a 2015 report commissioned by the World Health Organization, Madras highlighted that safe and effective dose ranges for medical uses were “unknown” and pointed out that “efficacy criteria lacked rigorous research.” She also noted that safety studies on the drug were short and inadequate and that “there is no consensus by the qualified experts that marijuana is medicine.”
Nonetheless, marijuana use, especially among young people, continues to rise. A 2022 study sponsored by the National Institute of Drug Abuse found that 43.6 percent of polled Americans aged 19-30 had used marijuana in the previous year.
This figure represents approximately half the percentage of individuals who consumed alcohol and more than two and a half times the percentage who smoked cigarettes. Unsurprisingly, Americans spend nearly $100 billion annually on both legal and illegal cannabis.
According to a 2023 report from New Frontier Data, a prominent market research firm based in Washington, D.C., about 15 percent of all adult Americans are considered potential cannabis consumers. According to the firm’s polling, 25 percent of respondents who are not currently marijuana users said they would be open to trying it in the future, especially for medical use.
That could mean a major addiction crisis for the United States is not far away. In a 2022 study, Professor Jonathan P. Caulkins examined daily and near-daily users of marijuana and alcohol from 1992 to 2022. In that time span, the per capita rate of marijuana use already increased 15-fold, without any action from the federal government.
Dr. Otto von Muhlfeld, a former police psychologist who advised German Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmerman on counter-narcotic policies in the mid-1980s, also told me that he could “not recall an addict who did not tell me they started with marijuana.”
“You will see that people addicted to cannabis use it more frequently than alcohol addicts drink. This is because the craving for cannabis is stronger and the side effects are not as obvious,” Professor Cabiallavetta added.
Dr. von Muhlfeld also noted that in other countries around the world, liberal drug laws have already led to disastrous results. In Thailand, for instance, one of the world’s leading suppliers of illicit drugs, the health ministry has found that marijuana use by children and youth contributed to decreasing their intelligence and led forty percent of users to heroin addiction. Moreover, healthcare costs for marijuana users have increased exponentially.
Nonetheless, Biden and state-level Democrats – along with a growing number of Republicans – appear determined to continue toward full marijuana legalization. It may well be a budding crisis for the country.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.