In the end, there's no good reason to legalize marijuana

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In his State of the State address, Gov. Tim Walz vowed to make Minnesota the best state in the country in which to raise a family. Now the governor and his allies are poised to diminish Minnesota's public health and quality of life by legalizing recreational pot.

Extensive data from other states shows how legalization will unfold. There will be a sharp increase in traffic fatalities. A statistically small but very real cohort of people — thousands of them, disproportionately young — will develop addiction or psychosis. Little children will develop medical problems because of prenatal exposure or because of eating cannabis-laden edibles left by adults.

Pot shops and billboards will spring up everywhere (unlike in other states, Minnesota communities won't be able to opt out). Marijuana will be aggressively marketed to young adults, who are vulnerable because their brains aren't mature. Health impacts will fall most heavily on the poorest, least-resourced and least-sophisticated families in Minnesota.

Proponents have shown no sensible reasons to cast this blight upon our state. Opponents have shown weighty reasons not to commercialize and normalize pot. (Almost everyone agrees on decriminalizing and expunging criminal records for possession of small amounts.)

Legalizing cannabis is a menace to highway safety. Kevin Torgerson, the sheriff of Olmsted County, has stated the case plainly: "Currently, law enforcement lacks an instant, on-site test for cannabis intoxication, like the breathalyzer. We also lack a standard to determine if a driver is unfit to be behind the wheel. … This is especially important considering that in states with legalized cannabis, the number of traffic deaths involving drivers who test positive for cannabis has increased."

The pending cannabis bills include a "pilot project" to develop roadside impairment tests for law enforcement while legalization proceeds. This build-the-airplane-while-you-fly-it approach to public safety would be rejected in any other context. The issue of highway safety alone should have tabled the legalization bills.

Meanwhile, physicians have raised compelling public health issues. Dr. William Nicholson, the Minnesota Medical Association's president, listed several in these pages at the outset of the legislative debate ("Minn. doctors: Limit harm from legal pot," Jan. 11).

Dr. Nicholson warned that the public's awareness of the risks of cannabis is limited. Among those risks, he named addiction, psychosis, psychopathology in children exposed to marijuana during pregnancy, and impacts on the brain development of young adults. On behalf of the MMA, he urged that "individuals under age 25 should be prohibited from purchasing, possessing or using cannabis or cannabis-infused products."

These public health risks are unrebutted. They're grounded in hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. Regardless, the legalization bills have slouched ahead through the Legislature.

Media coverage of the legislative hearings has been sparse. It mostly has ignored the public health issues. A striking exception was the Star Tribune's editorial on Catherine Mayberry ("A promising life derailed by cannabis," March 16).

Catherine was an honor student, an athlete and an artist who became addicted to cannabis in her late teens. She developed psychosis, involving hallucinations and delusional thinking. Her family's earnest attempts to help her were unsuccessful. She died of a drug overdose at age 24.

Catherine's parents strove to alert the legislature to the dangers of cannabis addiction and psychosis, especially for young adults. Ironically, testimony by Catherine's father was shunted aside and restricted while (as the editorial notes) former Gov. Jesse Ventura "spoke at length against those advocating for 25 as the minimum age of use."

The Star Tribune's Editorial Board commendably was moved by Catherine's story. Legalizers seemingly were not. The Minnesota Medical Association's warning of the risk to developing brains of young adults appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

Now Walz and his cohorts stand on the banks of the Rubicon. The legalization bill would alter Minnesota in irreversible ways. Normalizing marijuana would dull down people's perception of risk, degrade the culture, and devastate the families of victims of traffic accidents and of addiction.

Our fate is in the hands of a few Democrats in the Minnesota Senate. We need some brave counterparts to the public-spirited Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney after Jan. 6. We need courageous officials willing to break party ranks on a key issue and stand up for the public good.

John Hagen, of Minneapolis, is an attorney and writer.