The Science is in, and the deluge of evidencebased data and research on the harms and potential harms of Cannabis/Marijuana and its manipulated derivatives continues to mount clear causal links to Psychosis, Hippocampus damage - resulting in short term memory loss, Temporal lobe damage, lack of motivation, negative Mental Health outcomes, Genotoxic and Mutagenic properties and the list of evidence-based facts goes on.

But what are we hearing in the marketplace, and consequently, what are our young people parroting? It’s ‘medical’, therefore ‘can’t be that bad!’ ‘Everyone says it’s harmless’. The benign mantras hide an incredibly malignant reality that our communities and particularly the young, are paying a heavy price for.

A message that an addiction for profit industry is ‘selling’ easily to many greedy and becoming increasingly obvious, ‘bought off’ policy and law makers that has no more quintessential clarity than in the US State of Colorado – Ground Zero for ‘recreational’ cannabis legalisation.

Our February 2020 tour was an absolute eye opener and for many members of various parliaments – a revelation. absolutely no clue of the correlation of their Marijuana use and the physical, emotional, relational, social, criminal and psychological consequences they were now having to work through in a rehab setting. Did they have anything bad to say about Marijuana? Very few, in fact what I heard was almost verbatim the messages being promoted by commercial organisations, medical dispensaries, dealers and political parties about how amazing this plant was and just how much it is helping the country.

However, when they understood the medical and scientific evidence and research there were many lights going on in people’s eyes and there were many young people wanting answers. Why are they being sold a product which is apparently good for them when in reality it is and was a significant contributing factor to their current situation...?

Not only have members of our coalition experienced first hand, the escalating and grossly under-reported harms of the failed experiment, but the two remarkable clinicians on our tour more than confirmed the very worst. The staggering increase in the black market and Cartel activity (despite legalization) There are now three unwieldly marijuana markets including the ‘grey’ market produced by failed bureaucracy, under-regulation and mismanagement.

Crime is not decreasing, rather increasing. Drug driving harms and deaths escalating. High levels of homelessness, particularly of young people in states where Marijuana has been legalised.

The failed promises we only glimpsed at were more than confirmed, by our visiting clinicians Dr Randall and educator, Lynn Riemer, with no prosperity, no increased usable revenues and a veritable avalanche of both predicated and unforeseen costs, that the non-cannabis using tax-payer are now bearing the burden of – a burden they were told would never eventuate.