Lawmakers in the state of Arizona have recently approved spending $250,000 to research connections between marijuana use and “psychosis.”
The idea was endorsed by a controversial book that scientists have panned as “junk science” and was attached to broader bill that allocates money from the state’s medical marijuana fund to public health, mental health treatment and suicide prevention.
It had been a component of legislation introduced a year ago and House Speaker Rusty Bowers said that his 2020 measure stemmed from his reading “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence.”
The book by former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson has been criticized by the scientific community.
100 scholars and clinicians have signed an open letter denouncing the book as “junk science.”
“We had a name for this bill: It was the Christmas tree of bad marijuana ideas,” said Julie Gunnigle, director of politics for the Arizona Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Will Humble, who led the Department of Health Services when the state’s medical marijuana system was created, said, “If you are afraid of the results that are going to come out of this, you can take a chill pill.”
He said $250,000 is “pocket change” and will likely not generate any new or surprising results.
According to Humble, the connections between violence and marijuana seem overblown.
“I have high hopes, pun intended, for the state of cannabis in Arizona,” Gunnigle has said.
