Does America Have a Problem With Marijuana?
On February 9, 2026, the New York Times’ Editorial Board published an opinion piece titled “It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem”.[1] Their facts and their logic supporting this assertion are sound, but their recommendations could be improved.
The NYT has supported marijuana legalization since 2014, when it published a six-part series comparing marijuana criminalization to alcohol prohibition. They saw no sense in people being free to alter their consciousness with addictive substances such as alcohol and tobacco, while hundreds of thousands doing the same with marijuana were being incarcerated. The current editorial emphasizes that they have not changed their position regarding legalization. Rather, they now question whether, despite earlier plans to “legalize and regulate”, we have failed to develop sufficient regulation in the face of more aggressive marketing and lobbying by Big Marijuana and the advent of more heavy marijuana use than expected after legalization.
Like many pro-marijuana advocates, the NYT had accepted the consensus that marijuana has few downsides and believed addiction and dependence were “relatively minor problems.” However, with more than half of U.S. citizens now living in states where marijuana is legal, roughly 18 million Americans use marijuana almost daily (i.e., at least five times a week), which outstrips the roughly 15 million near-daily alcohol users. A graph of light, moderate, and heavy marijuana users from 2000 to the present reveals a distinct hockey stick upturn in use among all three categories of users beginning in 2015.
As I documented in From Bud to Brain and Marijuana on My Mind, near-daily exposure to THC reduces cannabinoid receptors in the frontal lobes by 20 percent, which reduces scores on tests of executive functions in 18 million U.S. adults. This represents six and a half percent of our country’s adult population. In addition, nearly 2.8 million Americans experience cannabinoid-induced severe vomiting and stomach pain, known as hyperemesis syndrome. And more people have ended up in hospital ERs with cannabis-induced paranoia and psychosis.
So, the NYT editors are right. America does have a problem with cannabis. It is not as dramatic as our mortal problem with opiates, but it is a significant enough public health problem that it should be openly discussed. The Times is adamant that going backward is not the answer, and I totally agree, primarily because the old policies never worked anyway, while doing substantial harm in racially biased ways. But there is a lot of room between criminalization and an absence of meaningful regulation. In other words, free enterprise cannot be allowed total freedom. Legalization of potentially harmful products requires sufficient regulation to protect the public, as exists for alcohol and tobacco. But how to go forward with cannabis?
The Times suggested three strategies for mitigating the public health problems resulting from marijuana legalization that would not unduly restrict personal freedom. Their first suggestion for reducing heavy cannabis use is a federal tax, a strategy borrowed directly from alcohol and tobacco policy. While this tax would fall most heavily on frequent users (20 percent of whom the Times claims purchase 50 percent of retail marijuana) and would theoretically reduce their use, there is a problem. At least in California, the legal cannabis industry is still in tight competition with the large, unregulated market. Too aggressive taxation simply augments the demand for illegally grown weed. In addition, it is relatively easier to grow your own supply than to grow and process your own tobacco or brew your own alcohol. As a result, I believe a federal tax on marijuana would be less effective than taxing alcohol and tobacco.
The second suggestion is to restrict the most harmful forms of cannabis products. This suggestion has great merit. Few people who supported legalization realized that Big Marijuana’s race for profit would quickly result in extracting THC to produce vaping pens with 90 percent THC. Just as high-octane vodka gets you more intoxicated faster, today’s high THC hybrid flowers and extracted products create a high unknown to earlier 3 percent marijuana users. Good data documents that users of high THC products run a greater risk of psychotic and paranoid episodes.[2] Just as levels of nicotine are regulated, and alcohol levels in beer and wine are controlled, similar regulation of THC levels in cannabis products should be implemented.
Times editors suggest capping THC content at 60 percent. Since risk rises with increased THC concentration, no one yet knows the ideal maximum level needed to protect public health. Every province in Canada sets its own regulations, and the most populous province, Ottawa, caps THC content in marijuana flower at 30 percent. Edible and vape pen levels are calculated to approximate marijuana levels. I think it would be best to start at a lower maximum THC concentration than the NYT’s suggested 60 percent, with a willingness to adjust maximum levels as more is learned. 30 percent is a good starting point. Needless to say, the only way to have zero risk is to abstain, but few people seek to avoid all risk in their lives.
And third, the NYT calls for more funding of research into potential medical benefits of cannabis, as well as stricter control of misleading health claims made by many marijuana dispensaries.
While the NYT is correct to press us to acknowledge that many people end up using cannabis frequently enough to harm themselves, they fail to advocate for the most powerful approach to increasing public health—education. Although it may be politically risky, tax revenue from marijuana should fund ongoing aggressive science-based education about the risks of too heavy cannabis use. And, just as people have come to distrust Big Tobacco, education should promote legitimate skepticism about Big Marijuana’s growing power. The effectiveness of such education has been well demonstrated by anti-tobacco ads. The goal of cannabis education should be moderation, not total abstinence.
I was told, when I served on California’s Cannabis Advisory Committee, that the government could not force the free enterprise cannabis industry to post educational warning signs about the risk of too frequent use, or to hand out educational pamphlets with every purchase. I think this is hogwash. We require warnings on packaged cannabis products. If the citizens’ representatives can grant licenses to Big Marijuana to sell their products, our representatives should have the right to require the promulgation of scientifically accurate education. Think of it like requiring seat belts in cars. You have a license to drive, but a requirement to drive safely.
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