Concern Over Teen Addiction Fuels Opposition To Legalizing Weed In New Jersey

Melissa Tasse is the mother of a teenager and a neuroscientist who spends a lot of time studying the connection between addiction and the adolescent brain.

“It all starts with kids who start smoking, who start drinking, who start using marijuana,” said Tasse of Summit, New Jersey, “then, it causes brain changes, and some of these people will develop addictions to heroin later in life.”

The link that worries her more is the one between a state’s legalization of cannibus for recreational use, and teen usage of marijuana.

“More and more children will use it and more and more children will develop marijuana use disorders.”

That fear is the basis of her opposition to the November 3rd ballot question that asks  New Jersey voters if the state constitution should be amended to make cannabis a legal substance for adults 21 and older.

Tasse fears if the measure passes, weed in all of it’s forms—from brownies to gummies, will attract young users, and change communities for the worse.

“We will have pot shops everywhere. We will have the smell of marijuana everywhere.” she said. 

Poll after poll shows in New Jersey has shown that most likely voters are in favor of making cannabis a legal recreational drug; cannabis has been legal for use as a medical treatment for a decade.

But Tasse and a small contingent of voters are working to defeat the measure, many of them citing teen addiction as a main concern, but also fears of motorists driving while high, or large cannabis operations moving into downtowns. 

Gregg Edwards heads NoPotNJ.org, a bare-bones operation with the slogan, “Don’t Let NJ Go To Pot.”

He said he doesn’t like that the ballot questions does not restrict the amount of THC in cannabis.That’s the psychoactive component that delivers a high. It also doesn’t restrict the form the cannabis can be sold in.

“Edibles like candy are permitted under this language,” he said.

The No Pot NJ campaign has been overshadowed by the cannabis industry, which has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the state over the last two years to make cannabis legal.

Recent fundraising filings show two pro-legalization groups - NJCan2020 and “Building Stronger Communities Action Fund, Inc.” have raised just over $1 million. Of that, $800,000 came from The Scotts Company, which is known for its lawn and garden product, Miracle-Gro. Scotts also sells products to the marijuana industry.

Edwards’s group has raised roughly $10,000. 

He said the industry is seeking to make money, and ignoring the negative data, like a spike in young people being hospitalized after trying marijuana products - one of the outcomes following Colorado’s legalization in 2012.

The Journal of Adolescent Health found that cannabis-related hospitalizations of young people, age 13 to 21, climbed from 161 in 2005, to 777 in 2015 -- the year after pot sales started in Colorado. 

David Nathan, founder of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation, is a psychiatrist and a member of NJCan2020 -- a coalition that includes cannabis-industry lobbyists who are campaigning for legalization.

Nathan, a father of adolescent children, agreed that pot can have adverse effects on the developing brain. But he said the best deterrent is information.

“If you want to stop drug use, the way to do it is through education, not prohibition.”

He said prohibiting marijuana hasn’t stopped people from using it.

Meanwhile, Edwards is struggling to get the No Pot NJ message out.

He said campaigning has been challenging with a pandemic limiting his access to voters. He’s had to give up his earlier plans for face-to-face meetings with PTA and law enforcement groups, in exchange for virtual messaging.

But he said he is not convinced that the polls reflect the voters’ positions. He points out that state legislators tried to pass a bill to legalize marijuana, but failed, back in March of 2019.

“If this issue were so popular, we wouldn't be having this vote,” Edwards said. “The legislature would have passed the bill a year and a half ago … They couldn't do it, so there clearly were legislators who believed that this was not a popular thing for them to do.”

Legislators never voted to legalize weed. Rather, when it was clear that too many Senators were on the fence, or outright opposed to legalization, the state legislature voted to toss the decision into the hands of voters.

Edwards is also hoping that some voters reject the issue because of the view changing the state constitution to make weed legal as sacrilegious. 

“To put cannabis in the Constitution along with the …  right to free speech or to practice religion, and then have cannabis use in there seems to be odd.”

Industry watchers have said New Jersey is a strategic location for cannabis sales. The 9 million residents offer more customers, but it also could create a domino effect, encouraging surrounding states to legalize, and get the benefit of the tax revenue.

Marijuana Business Daily projects the industry could generate at least $840 million a year in sales, by 2024.

Gov. Cuomo earlier this year vowed to legalize recreational cannabis in New York in 2020, now, in 2021, as a way to raise revenue.

If the measure passes, the state legislature will have to craft a bill that lays out how the industry would operatie, including how much to tax the pot, and whether to allow people with arrest records related to past marijuana crimes to get licenses to sell legally.