Federal marijuana hostility unfounded

Despite overwhelming support in recent years for marijuana legalization, republican lawmakers are still ignoring the people and pushing the war on drugs. A recent poll from Quinnipiac University found that 93% of Americans are in favor of marijuana legalization. The legal marijuana opposition is not only ignoring the people, but also ignoring undeniable facts. Key legislators like Attorney General Sessions and his administration have shown their disregard for scientific research by continuing to call marijuana a "gateway drug" that leads to opioid abuse, but the truth is quite the opposite. The use of medical marijuana is actually associated with a decrease in opioid use in chronic pain patients. In Washington state, high schoolers showed virtually no change in marijuana usage rates over the last 10 years, including timeperiods where marijuana was both legal and illegal. It's clear that legal marijuana does not have nearly the negative impact proposed by most republican legislators.

A recent nationwide poll from Quinnipiac University found 71 percent of Americans would oppose a federal crackdown on legal marijuana, and 93 percent are in favor of marijuana legalization.

Marijuana isn’t a “gateway” to harder drugs, just like ordering a milkshake at Cougar Country isn’t a “gateway” to buying a Super Basket.

The pain-relieving effects of marijuana are actually associated with a significant decrease in medication side effects and frequency of use of opioids for chronic pain patients.

Additionally, data from the Washington State Healthy Youth Survey affirms that marijuana usage rates for eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders in Washington have remained essentially unchanged for the past decade.