Who do you believe to tell you the benefits of legalizing recreational marijuana? Dr. Kevin Sabet from Smart Approaches to Marijuana or Joe the local “weed guy”?
Chaz and AJ had Dr. Sabet in this morning to give his take on the debate.
“Today’s weed, it’s not the same weed from before. It’s not only producing paranoia and panic attacks, but acute and long-term psychosis,” Sabet said. “It’s 99 percent THC.” THC is the main ingredient of the cannabis plant that creates the high. The price for weed is going down, and would decrease even more once CT legalizes it, but Sabet claims that it’s not for our benefit. Cigarette companies, E-Cig companies, and even Wall Street are heavily investing in weed, and Sabet claims that this is dangerous.
“They’re genetically breeding it to get the THC much higher,” said Sabet, “They’re taking what might have been a benign plant in the 1960’s and making it super strength. That’s what’s being proposed in Connecticut.”
We all know that large cigarette companies like Philip Morris have been accused and later proven to add additives and chemicals to their cigarettes and other products that have taken thousands of people’s lives for decades. Sabet claims that Big Tobacco companies are planning to do the same thing with weed: monetize it using additives and GMOs, potentially making marijuana as life threatening, if not more, than cigarettes.
“I don’t think [Ned Lamont] has cynical reasons [for legalizing weed], he just doesn’t know,” Sabet says. Sabet’s goal is to educate states around the country on the risks of legalizing weed.
Sound convincing? Well, of course Joe LaChance the local “weed guy” called in.
“If he finds 90 percent weed, then please tell him to send it over to me,” Joe said, “There is no thing as 90 percent marijuana.” LaChance claims that there are many publicly funded health advocate groups like Smart Approaches to Marijuana and ties to “big-pharma” that are advocating against weed legalization.
“Legal weed would hurt their business, big time,” Joe said. He claims that medical groups want to invest in medical weed (legal in CT) instead and create their own product for profit. They want to invest “on the medical side, but the problem is that they want to control it.” And let’s face it; users pay enough for weed, medically and for recreational use, as it is.
LaChance believes that Sabet is a “shill for big pharma.” So, what does that make LaChance? That makes him “a shill for the people” that wants to see legalized weed in Connecticut.
For a typically stoned man, he makes a valid point. Who do you believe is more credible, the doctor or the experienced user, or a little bit of both?