Big Dope marijuana industry harms individuals, families and communities, warn North Dakota bishops

North Dakota’s Catholic bishops are urging Catholics to vote “No” on a state ballot proposal that would legalise marijuana for recreational use, warning how “individuals, families, and communities will be significantly harmed”.

Measure 5 will be on North Dakota ballots come the US presidential election on 5 November 2024, and, if approved, would allow adults aged 21 years old and over to grow, sell, possess and use marijuana in the state for recreational purposes. North Dakota voters rejected similar ballot proposals in 2018 and 2022.

Bishop David Kagan of Bismarck and Bishop John Folda of Fargo took a stance against Measure 5 in a 10 September statement issued to parishioners. They anchored their opposition in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches that “the use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offence.”

Kagan and Folda highlight research showing that regular marijuana use impairs brain functioning, stunts brain development, damages the lungs and can harm the immune system. They also note that regular marijuana use is associated with mental health issues like depression, anxiety and suicide, and that it can serve as a gateway to harder drugs.

“Marijuana is not the harmless drug that some imagine it to be,” Kagan and Folda said.

Stephanie Dahl, president of the North Dakota Medical Association, has also come out against Measure 5, arguing that “marijuana use is not without risk”. Tim Blasly, president of the North Dakota Hospital Association, has said that legalising marijuana shouldn’t be given such a priority at this time.

“Instead of legalising marijuana, we should focus on prevention, education and providing adequate resources for those who need help with substance use and mental health issues,” Blasl said in a statement. “We continue to experience an epidemic in terms of behavioural health issues in our communities and the health and safety of our community must come first.”

Measure 5 is sponsored by New Economic Frontier, an advocacy group that solely exists to advocate for the legalisation of recreational marijuana use in North Dakota. It highlights the potential economic opportunities that can be created from legalising marijuana, and the way the law change could potentially free up law enforcement resources.

The group also argues that adult-use marijuana brings “a new level of clarity and safety to the workplace”, and that legalisation would help regulate its use.

Marijuana is legal for recreational use in 24 US States, as well as in Washington, DC. Back in 2012, Colorado became the first state to legalise its use, and in the years since, as increasing numbers of States have proposed and adopted laws to legalise marijuana for recreational use, Catholic leaders have spoken out against it at every turn.

However, while data on the possible negative effects of marijuana is clear, data so far on whether or not legalising marijuana for recreational use also increases health-related issues remains murky.

Research conducted in 2022 by the University of Colorado, Boulder, found that while residents of States where marijuana is legalised for recreational use end up using it 24 per cent more frequently than those living in States where it remains illegal, the negative impacts of marijuana use had not increased at the same rate.

“Many social ills that opponents warned about a decade ago have not come to pass,” Brian Keegan, an assistant professor at the university who analyses the chemical makeup of cannabis and the evolution of the industry, said at the time, noting in particular that some studies have shown that opioid use and deaths actually decline in states following legalisation.

Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, however, published a pastoral letter on marijuana last year, where he took a deeper look at what the legalisation of marijuana has done to the State, and emphasised the relationship between marijuana use and the aforementioned health risks.

Aquila also highlighted data that shows that driving offences and driving-related fatalities have vastly increased in Colorado since marijuana was legalised for recreational use.

“During the campaigns that advocated for the legalisation of marijuana and other drugs, many pro-legalisation arguments were made, and visions of the future were cast which downplayed any potential negative effects of the legislation,” Aquila said.

“In Colorado, we are now a decade into this experiment. As more studies come out and more deaths from fentanyl pile up, we now have an overwhelming amount of data that reinforces what we have known to be true all along: the legalisation of marijuana and cultural acceptance of drug use have been disastrous to our society.”

Pope Francis also spoke out against the legalisation of drugs this June.

“A reduction in drug addiction is not achieved by liberalising drug use – this is an illusion – as has been proposed, or already implemented in some countries,” the Pope said.

Marijuana has become a billion-dollar industry in Colorado since its recreational legalisation. Some studies have shown that it has overtaken alcohol consumption in the US in terms of frequency of use.

Photo: A ‘Weed’ sign advertises a cannabis dispensary in Los Angeles, California, USA, 24 May 2024. A new study by Carnegie Mellon University has found that marijuana consumption has overtaken alcohol as more Americans now use marijuana on a daily or near-daily basis compared to those who drink alcohol. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.)

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