Hello. My name is Paul, and I am a drug dealer.
I deal in one of the many drugs society has deemed “acceptable” — caffeine. Caffeine is a naturally occurring central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine class and is the most widely taken psychoactive stimulant globally.
Caffeine is commonly found in chocolate, tea, energy drinks, dietary supplements, and – my favorite – coffee. While the scientific community is far from united on the topic of “caffeine addiction,” there is universal acceptance of clinical “caffeine dependence.”
Like most drugs, caffeine is safe when taken in moderation, but can have crippling effects on sleep, digestion, mental health, and even cause death when abused. But thankfully, commercial and political interests have deemed my drug
“safe” and “acceptable.”
I allude to the potential harmful effects of caffeine not to frighten or shame the caffeine consumer (or to harm the purveyors of caffeine products!), but to begin to expose the hypocrisy of those who oppose the cultivation and retail distribution of cannabis in Mansfield and Richland County.
When used recreationally in moderation, or as part of a medicinal regime, cannabis is no more or less dangerous than any of the dozens of drugs we interact with on a daily basis.
The fact is, no one can truthfully tell you with any degree of certainty what the long-term effects of cannabis are because the FDA and independent labs have been legislatively forbidden from conducting rigorous, longitudinal studies of cannabis and many of its chemical components.
Local voices of “authority” are citing partisan, anecdotal, and non-peer reviewed sources in their campaigns against the legal cannabis industry.
Even local law enforcement, when asked about the impacts of new dispensaries on crime statistics, fail to mention that while there are indeed small upticks in criminal behavior around new dispensaries, those statistics are almost identical to what would be expected with the opening a new full-service liquor establishment.
The interests of the liquor, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries are those being served by the opposition to cannabis, not the interests of the people.
If community leaders are truly concerned about substance abuse in our city there are certainly more worthy targets. According to the Ohio Department of Health’s latest “Unintentional Drug Overdose Report’, just under 5,000 Ohians died from drug overdoses.
The study found that fentanyl and fentanyl analogs were involved in 3,963 overdose deaths, which represented 81% of total unintentional drug overdose deaths and 96% of all opioid-related overdose deaths. Cocaine and psychostimulants (e.g. methamphetamine) were the second-leading cause of unintentional drug overdose death. The report found NOT A SINGLE OVERDOSE DEATH ATTRIBUTABLE TO CANNABIS.
According to a study from the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C, the proportion of the population consuming caffeine ranged from: 83.2% of teens 13 to 17 years of age; 85.8% of young adults 18 to 24 years of age; 87.2% of adults 25 to 24 years of age; 92.1% of adults 35 to 49 years of age; 93.3% of adults 50 to 64 years of age; 99.6% of adults 65 years of age or higher.
And let’s not even get started on tobacco and alcohol use, both are dangerous in ways that can’t even be compared to cannabis use, yet where are the calls for a dry and smoke free city?
Where are the signatures demanding the prohibition of nicotine? Where are the moratoriums on new liquor licenses?
The answer is they don’t exist because we learned nearly 100 years ago that prohibition does not work. It didn’t work for alcohol, it won’t work for cannabis.
Local governments need to agree on education and enforcement regimes, set reasonable standards for zoning, and sit back and conscientiously invest the added tax revenue back into our community.
Paul Kemerling
Mansfield, Ohio
Relax, It’s Just Coffee