Anne Schlafly - What Is Weed Really Doing To You?

As marijuana use continues to grow and more states move toward legalization, new research is raising concerns about its impact on brain function. From memory and coordination to mood and decision-making, critics argue the risks aren’t being fully addressed in the push for legalization.

Anne Schlafly, Chairman of Eagle Forum, joins the program to break down what the science says and whether states are overlooking the potential downsides.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to the program. It's a pleasure to be with you, and a real pleasure to welcome back to my program, Ann Schlafley, who is chair of the Eagle Forum and author of Throwing Children Under the Cannabis. Ann, welcome back. That's a great title for a book, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Thank you so much. Well, you know, you have to fight fire with fire. They're marketing uh uh marijuana, which is a mind-altering drug, and they're marketing as some soft thing that that you should take. And they even call today a national holiday to smoke marijuana.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah, and the thing about that, Ann, is I've I've asked people, you know, uh you you understand the story of why they say 420, because, you know, or every day is 420, or at 420, it it all goes back to just a bunch of weed culture, which I don't subscribe to. I don't like the drug. Uh, and I've I've had people say, Well, have you ever tried it? Twice in high school, twice in college, thought it was stupid both times. Uh, never had it seemed to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

And I live in a state where it's legal sound stupid. What's that? Well, when you use it, you sound stupid. That's why it's a stupid drug.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

It is. And and and so the thing is when people say, well, you can't criticize it if you well, I I don't actually think uh I don't think I have to try heroin, which I never have, uh, to be able to say it would be foolish to try heroin. But when once a year on 420, April 20th, uh there are people who want to celebrate all this. And I get the feeling that most TV root newsrooms and many of the newspaper newsrooms and probably the online newsrooms are so populated with liberals that they love the idea because I'd be willing to bet that most of them are users of pot, whether they live in a state where it's legal or not. And I've always thought, Ann, if I'm going to talk about something and I have a personal involvement in it, I need to disclose that to my audience. I suspect that a lot of the journalists who write in favor of weed legalization or weed acceptance are not admitting to their audience I'm in favor of it at least in part because I use it, and I wish they would.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Well, does that they use it and that's why they their arguments make no sense?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Well, probably. You know, that too, but then they leave out the things that you and I both know, and I'd like you to share that with my audience, and that is the fact is the stuff does damage to your brain, and there are good studies that back that up, aren't there?

SPEAKER_02 2:25

It does enormous damage, and and my book focuses on the enormous damage to the children because this drug the the the brains do not fully develop until age 25. The pot uh profiteers are pushing it on children by making it into candy and gummies and putting flavors into the marijuana, the way they used to do flavors into tobacco in order to hook the young user. And this is permanent brain damage for a lot of users. It leads to psychosis and schizophrenia. The dat and and it's it's incredible how much the um the marijuana uh just stops it, just it it both um uh uh stops the sperm development and does the quantity and the quality of sperm. If you are on marijuana, you have fewer orgasms.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

And look what we've got going on in America right now, we have a lot fewer children being born. And that's it's actually gotten to the point where we're not even at replacement level anymore, are we?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Well, but who wants to spend time with a stoner? That's no, that doesn't make for a good boyfriend. Um, but it really is the leak to uh the link between marijuana and psychosis and schizophrenia is quite is quite damaging. We have um it's the heavy marijuana users. We have now more daily marijuana users than we do daily alcohol drinkers. That's how prevalent it has become, and it's particularly prevalent among young men. And young men are are losing their lives to this drug.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

So, what do we do about all this, Ann? I'm talking to Ann Schlafley, by the way, chair of the Eagle Forum and author of Throwing Children Under the Cannabis.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Well, you just like um what we did with uh tobacco or um uh mothers against drunk driving or the the fight against the opioid uh uh addiction, we have to start first with social pressure. We're both in states where wreckful recreational marijuana is across the board. And because of that, the what we can do legally uh depends so much on people standing up and saying, not in my house, not in my community. And it's um I mean we have in in my community in Missouri, you know, we have 24 hour pot shops. Now why why should the store be open uh 24 hours to uh push this dangerous medication? Not medication, dangerous drug, because it's been sold on the false promise that it's medication, but it actually doesn't provide pain relief. It just puts you under a constant analgesic.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

No. And in fact, Ann, I've had people and says, oh, it ref relieves my pain. And I say, No, I've I've seen the story, it's not an analgesic. And by the way, Ann, I happen to live, I don't know, does is Missouri a state that has alcoholic beverage control, ABC?

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yes. So so uh so why not uh uh why don't we have similar controls on on marijuana? For example, we have um the advertise, you know, we you're not allowed to advertise on tobacco. We have these incredible billboards across our state that make the gummies of marijuana look so enticing. That's that's terrible that we're pushing that. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

And I was gonna say in in the states, I I I live I've lived in both Oregon and Washington for most of my life. And they have uh beverage control, but it's not ABC like the East Coast. But but it it goes through the state, and the state makes a lot of money on booze, but they also regulate it. They'll say each community can only have so many liquor stores. But I swear, you drive through the smallest town, every single town of any size at all. I mean, 500 people in a town and there's a pot shop. And I'm not I'm not exaggerating. There are towns that only have 500 people in them, but they have a pot shop, or two, or three. And you think, why is it that you had these limitations on alcohol and said you could only have so many pot, you know, so many alcohol uh dispensers per 10,000 population. But with pot, it's you know, the sky's the limit, and that doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Well, I'll give you another example. There are a lot of communities that have limitations on happy hours for alcohol. Yep. You can't do a two-for-one special.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Yet the local, my local pot shops here in my community offer two for one specials on selling marijuana.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

And that doesn't make any sense either, because I've had to deal with that too, and because working in radio, they literally told radio stations you can't advertise for a restaurant that has a happy hour. Why? Because it'll encourage people to drink. But it's okay to encourage them to smoke. And I'll tell you something else, Ann, all those lawsuits against the tobacco companies. I don't smoke cigarettes and never have, so it's not my issue. But they sued all those companies because they said, you evil companies did this. This is all being done with the sign-off of the state, meaning the government is signing off on pot and actively encouraging people to use it. When the lawsuits come because of schizophrenia, because of acts of violence and things like that, you know who those lawsuits are going to be? They're gonna be against every other taxpayer who's funded that government. That's Anne Schlafley. She is the chair of the Eagle Forum, just like her mom was, and author of Throwing Children Under the Cannabis. If you want to send emails, that's easy. Talk at LawrenceLarson.com. If you want to be a naysayer, that's easy too. We put all naysayers right to the head of the line. If you want to send me an email, it's talk at lawrencelarsen.com. You can check me out on Instagram, and of course, we podcast this show as well. You're listening to the Lars Larson show.