You would think this is a picture taken at a candy store targeting adolescents but guess again. It is targeting adolescents but it’s a “Pot Shop” and all of these items contain THC (marijuana). According to Go Local Prov, a bill to legalize recreational marijuana will soon be introduced in Rhode Island. It would seem it’s a done deal because Gov. McKee’s budget already includes an expected $1.7 million in taxes from the Marijuana industry… but at what cost to Rhode Island youth and families?
That cost is no longer an unknown. We have the benefit of learning from states like Colorado that have gone before us. Check out these quotes from an article that appeared in the Denver Post:
- “Colorado’s youth use marijuana at a rate 85 percent higher than the national average”
- After 6 years of commercialized marijuana, “marijuana-related traffic fatalities are up by 151 percent. Now 70 percent of 400 licensed pot shops surveyed recommend that pregnant women use marijuana to treat morning sickness.”
- “Now Colorado has issued over 40 little-publicized recalls of retail marijuana laced with pesticides and mold.”
- “Colorado has a booming black market exploiting a permissive regulatory system – including Mexican cartel growers for that black market who use nerve-agent pesticides that are contaminating Colorado’s soil, waters, and wildlife.”
- And there has been “no net gain: marijuana tax revenue adds less than one percent to Colorado’s coffers, which is more than washed out by the public health, public safety, and regulatory costs of commercialization.”
- There are “marketers who advertise higher and higher potency marijuana gummi candy, marijuana suppositories, and marijuana ‘intimate creams.’ This aggressive marketing makes perfect sense in addiction industries like tobacco, alcohol, opioids, and marijuana. These industries make the vast majority of their profits from heavy users, and so they strive to create and maintain this user market. This works especially well when users are young and their brains are most vulnerable to addiction.”
In the words of that article’s author, “I’m not sure the 55 percent of Coloradans who voted for commercialization in 2012 thought they were voting for all this.”
We can do better for Rhode Island Children and families. Instead of endangering citizens – including young people – our leaders and legislators should look for ways to protect children, pursuing policies that embody the principles of “The Promise to America’s Children.” This national campaign is headed up by the Family Policy Alliance, The Heritage Foundation, and Alliance Defending Freedom. It articulates a simple promise: as adults, we will protect children’s minds, bodies, and their most important relationships especially with their parents.
To quote here from the Parent version of the Promise:
- “I promise to nurture and protect your mind as you grow, doing everything in my power to keep you from harm, to instill values, and to give you the best opportunities for success.”
- “I promise to honor and protect your body as you grow, affirming your dignity and worth in the body you have been fearfully and wonderfully given.”
- “I promise to invest in, nurture, and protect our relationship because you are unconditionally loved by and of infinite worth to me.”
The Promise to America’s Children can be read here in its entirety.
Please join us in putting Rhode Island’s children and their well-being children first. Let your legislators know you don’t want recreational marijuana legalized in our state. You can easily find your state legislators’ contact information at our Action Center here.
For our children,
Dave Aucoin
Chairman, Board of Directors – Rhode Island
P.S. Please consider supporting Family Policy Alliance monthly so we can carry on the work of making our state a place where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive and life is cherished.
