Opinion by Matt Poling, opinion contributor, The Hill. Matt Poling is a physician, Medical Director of Citizens for a Safe and Health Texas and Faculty Advisor for Texas A&M Young Americans for Freedom.

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Marijuana users are five times more likely to become alcoholics. Up to 40 percent of marijuana users use daily, and up to 30 percent meet criteria for addiction — both far higher percentages than for drinkers. Using alcohol to excuse marijuana use or legalization is simply an exercise in lazy whataboutism.

THC strongly induces suicidality even in patients who were not depressed to begin with and state legalization has led to sharp increases in youth suicides. Up to 30 percent of schizophrenia cases in young men are attributable to THC and such users are now responsible for uncounted numbers of mass shootings. Like Robin Westman of Minneapolis who wrote “weed (messed) up my head” and “if I could stop vaping I could stop myself from doing this attack” in his manifesto.

Marijuana is also causing the same cancers as tobacco, dramatic increases in heart attacks and strokes and quadrupling diabetes rates in users. Ganja will not make America healthy again, let alone great.

Add to this the well-known adverse effects on educational achievement and motivation and the costs of the cannabis culture to government budgets are staggering. One study in Colorado conservatively estimated nearly 5 dollars in increased spending and lost revenue for every dollar collected in marijuana taxes—even at a 15 percent sales tax rate.

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