(Reviewed by Heidi A. Swan)
Whether you are for marijuana legalization or against it, it is important to understand the truths about the industry and how laws are being made. Additionally, marijuana is a drug, and like every other drug, it has side effects.
Full disclosure: I know a few of the people profiled in this book. It was heart wrenching for me to read their stories because of the loss they suffered due to high THC products. Some were about their children who took their own lives. There were details I had not heard until I read Smokescreen. These were suicides which were results of severe psychosis from use of high potency THC products.
The author of Smokescreen, Dr. Kevin Sabet, was a Drug Advisor to both Bush and Obama. This is not a Red vs Blue book. It is, rather, a book which shows that Green has obfuscated decisions which should be based on public health. Dr. Sabet shows how Big Marijuana is being funded by Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol and Big Pharma. The industry is following the hugely successful playbook of Big Tobacco.
Addiction-For-Profit industries are nothing new to our country. However, it is deeply alarming and disheartening to read about the alliances Big Marijuana has made with our politicians.
Politicians keep talking about how much tax money legalized states are making. But they don’t factor into the equation that there’s a huge spike in ER visits due to THC, the increase in THC-impaired driving fatalities and that youth use has risen in legalized states (the list goes on).
We were told the legal products would be regulated. Are they? What has happened to the illicit market? We were promised it would go away. Did it? What about crime associated with marijuana? Wasn’t that supposed to go down? Most Americans do not know the true answers to these questions.
Smokescreen describes the harms caused to humans and the environment. I live in a drought state which is also a hotbed of legal and illegal marijuana grows. A marijuana plant takes six gallons of water per day. The proliferation of illegal grows are stealing water and using pesticides and rodenticides which are devastating our forests and wildlife. Indoor grows emit more greenhouse gases than coal mines. This is not an exhaustive list.
Dr. Sabet writes in a way which is very easy to read, and I enjoyed it. Much of the information is familiar to me but, at regular intervals, he surprised me with new stories, new statistics. This is a must-read and necessary book with information which is crucial for everyone to understand today. It’s happening right under our noses and most of us don’t know what’s going on. That’s what Smokescreen is about.
