America has a surprisingly long history debating marijuana. Long before Mexico prohibited the sale of the drug in the 1920s and the U.S. imposed a tax on the sale and possession in 1937, communities in both countries were raising the alarm on the ways recreational marijuana use was harming individuals and the public overall.

In the 1970s, the federal government classified it as a Schedule I drug under the newly minted Controlled Substances Act. At the same time, tobacco giant Philip Morris entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to study the toxicity and carcinogenesis of inhaled marijuana without the public’s knowledge, and this information was forced into the light during the litigation of Big Tobacco in the late 1990s. 

When a small handful of states began testing the waters by “legalizing” this federally illegal drug, President Obama opened the floodgates to mass commercialization in 2012 by announcing his administration would not enforce federal law. Since then, the carte blanche rescheduling of high-potency marijuana for therapeutic purposes by the Trump administration this past spring has only made a chaotic legal issue even more murky. Currently, half of U.S. states allow the recreational sale of marijuana (which is still illegal regardless of the rescheduling action), and a majority allow therapeutic use. 

This Is Not the Plant of the Past

In 1969, the marijuana plant averaged 1-2% THC, the chemical compound that causes intoxication. Today the average is roughly 22%, with specialty strains exceeding 35%. Concentrated marijuana products can approach 99% THC. This did not happen by accident — and it did not happen naturally. Marijuana has been reshaped through selective breeding, chemical mutagenesis, and induced genetic mutation. These are deliberate techniques to get more THC into the plant. Today’s drug shares a name with the plant of the 1960s, and little else.

Addiction-for-Profit Industries Get in the Game

This kind of potency escalation doesn’t happen without money behind it, and the money is not subtle. In 2024, marijuana rose to be a $38.5 billion industry in the U.S. alone, and this is being fueled, in part, by titans in the tobacco, pharmaceutical, and alcohol industries. This is not a scrappy, hippy-led grassroots effort — it is the same playbook used by industrial giants for decades: identify a product with addictive potential, market it aggressively, secure a generational customer base, and manage the science until the public discovery catches up.

Worse yet, state legislatures are now acting as the middleman by greenlighting illicit recreational drug use and taxing the addiction of its citizens, which ushers in a whole new level of insanity. 

Legalization Has Rewritten What ‘Normal’ Means

As legalization spreads state by state, it carries with it a message that has never actually been proven true: that marijuana is safe. Dispensaries now outnumber some fast-food chains across the U.S., and some communities have been blighted by the prolific availability of this drug.

This normalization campaign has resulted in a stark rise in addiction and negative impact on public health systems. According to the 2025 National Drug Survey, in the U.S. alone, there are 20.6 million people over the age of 12 with a cannabis use disorder. The Marijuana Industrial Complex knows how to hook a society on a substance and cash the check. It starts with making sure enough people believe the substance isn’t dangerous at all, regardless of the facts. 

Harming Future Generations

The adolescent brain isn’t fully developed until the mid-20s, and marijuana disrupts that development in lasting ways. Teens who start before 18 face 37-70% higher odds of experiencing depression as an adult. Daily use raises anxiety risk 2.5 to 3.2 times by age 29. A 2020 JAMA Psychiatry study found a 92% higher anxiety-disorder risk among users of today’s high-potency products, which now comprise nearly the entire market.

One of the most severe issues is cannabis-induced psychosis, which converts to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in roughly half of cases within a few years. And this is just scratching the surface on the harms of use afflicting the young individuals who will someday become the future leaders of our nation.

Families Caught in the Middle

Today’s teenagers are more convinced marijuana is harmless than teens were a generation ago. National survey data shows roughly 79% of eighth graders see no risk in trying marijuana, despite the fact that it poses serious physical and mental health risks to all users, and particularly those under age 25. That number tracks with the decline in federal funding for drug-prevention education that began around the first Gulf War in 1991. Funding for school-based prevention curricula has never fully recovered. Cultural normalization and legalization create a false narrative that marijuana is safe.

The Way Forward

We are now facing a self-inflicted public health epidemic of marijuana addiction and harm, and we have not even hit rock bottom yet. We are at the point where this issue must be solved not only in state houses and with cogent federal policy, but with heavy lifting by parents, teachers, and health professionals to educate our nation’s most precious resource: our next generation.

The way forward will require a clear-eyed, objective look at the facts surrounding marijuana and legalization. We must stand firm in the truth. The heroes of this recovery will be those closest to our youth who take the time to educate them on the harms of today’s high-potency marijuana and keep them from becoming this industry’s next addicted customer. “The Blunt Truth: Ten Things Every Parent Needs to Know About Marijuana” is a book intended to provide the framework for honest reflection and discussion. The time for action is now. 

Sue Homola and Dr. Raymond Wiggins are the authors of “The Blunt Truth: Ten Things Every Parent Needs to Know About Marijuana.”