ROSENTHAL REPORTS
MR. PRESIDENT: STOP POLITICIZING THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC
More than 140,000 Americans have died from drug overdose since President Trump took office more than two years ago. Now the president is exploiting the crisis in his battle with Congressional Democrats over funding for a wall along the southern border. The president, ignoring or misconstruing the government’s drug trafficking data, said last month that drugs including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl are coming over the border in a “vast pipeline” but could be “stopped cold” by a wall.
In fact, an estimated 35 percent of overdose deaths are due to legal prescription opioids manufactured by U.S. companies; they are not brought over the border by drug mules. The Drug Enforcement Agency’s 2018 Threat Assessment stated that while the majority of heroin and cocaine does enter the country along the southwest border with Mexico, those drugs are transported in cars, trucks and tractor-trailers at legal ports of entry and official crossing points, not at remote desert locations. Meanwhile, much of the fentanyl responsible for the spike in U.S. overdose is manufactured in labs in China and shipped here by mail.
The Trump administration has a poor record of responding to the opioid epidemic, aside from declaring it a public health emergency in 2017, which was largely a formality. At a time when innovative programs in many cities and states are starting to show positive results, it is wrong to divert attention from the most important needs: increasing education and prevention, reducing overdose fatalities, and expanding access to treatment. Instead of politicizing the opioid crisis, what we really need in Washington is strong leadership and a federal commitment to providing more resources, manpower and funding. Last year Congress appropriated around $9 billion for the epidemic, but a more appropriate amount would have been $100 billion to address this national tragedy over the next decade.
BIG POT SETS UP SHOP
For some time now, the Rosenthal Center has been concerned about the evolution of the legal marijuana market into a powerful industry known as Big Pot. Backed by politicians, investors, growers, marketers and retailers, Big Pot is here and open for business. As noted in the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column, “serious money is now flooding into marijuana,” with $7.9 billion raised by cannabis companies globally in just the fourth quarter of 2018, double the amount raised in all of 2017. Tobacco and liquor companies are particularly keen to establish a foothold in what could be a $50 billion U.S. market by 2025.
That forecast seems plausible: In 2018 consumers in California placed an order for a cannabis product every 8 seconds, according to an analysis of first year medical and recreational sales in the state. Women and baby boomers are driving growth, the report by cannabis platform Eaze found. Products with CBD – the non-psychoactive component of marijuana – are especially popular due to purported “wellness benefits” such as relief from anxiety, stress and pain. Users of these products might truly believe they work. But other than the one FDA-approved, CBD-based drug for a rare form of epilepsy, there’s no definitive scientific evidence that CBD oils, creams and chocolates really accomplish what is claimed. Posing even more uncertainty and risk are potent marijuana products with up to 25 percent THC, the drug’s psychoactive component, which are also popular.
Unlike tobacco and alcohol products and pharmaceuticals, legally purchased marijuana does not carry warning labels, dosage recommendations or information about potential side effects – about which we still lack sufficient information. More research is needed, and that is why I am renewing my call for a two-year moratorium on legalization to provide the opportunity to study the impact so far on health and social behavior. Complete legalization of marijuana across the country may be inevitable. That’s why consumers – especially parents of adolescents – need to know more about what Big Pot is selling.