Marijuana Debunked
Ed Gogek, M.D.

Is Sanders serious about Sweden?


Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 10.48.28 PMDur­ing last week’s De­moc­ratic de­bate, Ver­mont Sen­ator Be­rnie Sand­ers said the Uni­ted States should model its soci­al poli­cies on Swed­en, Nor­way and De­nmark—co­unt­ries that pro­vide free health care and free col­lege. But by say­ing he’d vote to legal­ize marijuana, Sand­ers made it much hard­er to con­vin­ce Americans to adopt these pro­grams.

Swedish his­to­ry shows why.

In the 1970s, Swed­en did what we’re doing now, told police to ig­nore drug pos­sess­ion and only pur­sue seri­ous crime. But drug abuse soared, so the co­unt­ry re­ver­sed co­ur­se. Today Swed­en and its neighbors have some of the world’s toug­hest drug laws, in­clud­ing tough marijuana laws.

None of the Scan­dinavian co­unt­ries have de­criminalized marijuana. Nor do they per­mit its med­ical use. An 84-acre auto­nom­ous dis­trict in Co­pen­hag­en is al­lowed to flout marijuana laws, but the rest of De­nmark en­for­ces them strict­ly.

This doesn’t mean jail­ing drug users. Swed­en does use the threat of jail to get sub­stan­ce ab­us­ers into treat­ment, and since crime is most­ly caused by sub­stan­ce abuse, this poli­cy pre­vents crime—so well that over the past de­cade the co­unt­ry has closed four prisons.

Tough marijuana laws also help keep Swedish social­ism af­ford­able, and that’s why sup­port­ing legaliza­tion is a pro­blem for Sand­ers. Peo­ple al­ready worry about what his pro­grams would cost.

For ex­am­ple, a Rand Cor­pora­tion re­port says Califor­nia spends $110 mill­ion year­ly on schizophrenia hos­pitaliza­tions caused by marijuana; for the whole U.S., that’s over $1 bi­ll­ion per year. Marijuana also causes ad­dic­tion and in­ju­ries from auto ac­cidents, which are ex­pen­sive pro­blems to treat. How can Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 10.56.37 PMSand­ers ask America to pay for free health care if he’s pro­mot­ing a marijuana poli­cy that would make health care more ex­pen­sive?

Re­search on post­al em­ployees, pub­lished in the Journ­al of the American Med­ical As­socia­tion in 1990, found that marijuana users had more dis­cip­lina­ry pro­blems, more ab­sen­tee­ism, and high­er tur­nov­er. A 2012 study showed that marijuana users have less com­mit­ment to work. One com­pany al­ready left Col­orado, cit­ing em­ployees who were too stoned to be pro­duc­tive. Sand­ers wants the U.S. to re­quire paid fami­ly leave and a high mini­mum wage. But if at the same time we legal­ize a drug that causes poor work per­for­mance, it could bankrupt busines­ses.

A Uni­vers­ity of Maryland study found that col­lege students who used marijuana—ev­en oc­casional­ly—studied less, skip­ped more clas­ses, ear­ned lower grades, and were less li­ke­ly to graduate. How can Sand­ers ask America to pay for free col­lege, and then pro­mote a drug poli­cy that leads students to waste the ex­peri­ence?

Teens who use marijuana be­fore age six­te­en have twice the dropout rate of non-users and are more often un­employed as adults. No parent wants that, and the Scan­dinavian co­unt­ries lar­ge­ly pre­vent it. A 2013 UNI­CEF re­port cal­led Child well-being in rich co­unt­ries ex­amined 29 wes­tern na­tions, and found that Nor­way and Swed­en had the lowest rates of teenage marijuana use, with Fin­land, Iceland and De­nmark close be­hind. In Swed­en and Nor­way, only 5 per­cent of teens under age six­te­en used marijuana. In the Uni­ted States the rate was 22 per­cent.

Most parents would love Sweden’s low rate of teenage use. In­stead, Sand­ers would make us like Col­orado, where teach­ers and school of­fici­als now say marijuana is their numb­er one pro­blem.

Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 10.47.42 PMScan­dinavian pro­grams such as free health care, free col­lege, a li­v­ing wage, good pens­ions and fami­ly leave would great­ly be­nefit most Americans. But it’s hard to take serious­ly some­one who would in­crease the cost of these pro­grams un­neces­sari­ly, and who would ig­nore our teenage marijuana epi­demic. By end­ors­ing legaliza­tion, Be­rnie Sand­ers has made him­self a less con­vinc­ing sales­man for the pro­grams he cares about most.

Prin­ted in the Arizona Re­pub­lic, Oct 22, 2015.

Ed Gogek

Ed Gogek

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