(Given at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Dana Point, California, 1 p.m. PDT, April 29, 2026)I am here to talk about cannabis – where the science and the politics of the drug stand today, and how they have changed since 2019, when I wrote Tell Your Children, about the psychiatric dangers of cannabis and THC, the chemical responsible for its high.But before I discuss what scientists sometimes call the “wacky tobacky” (okay, not scientists, but some of you out there – I’m not naming any names), I want to thank Hillsdale, Matt Bell, Doug Jeffrey, and Dr. Arnn [Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale] for inviting me to this beautiful hotel.For not forgetting me.—(You have not forgotten me either. Together we push for truth.)—What I’m about to say for the next few minutes may seem a bit off-topic, but I promise it connects to the issue at hand.During Covid, my anti-lockdown and pro-school opening views made me a darling of many on the right. To a lesser extent, so did my concerns about the mRNA Covid vaccines and vaccine mandates.I am a lifelong political independent, though I have no doubt grown more conservative with age. As the old joke goes, if you’re 20 and conservative, you have no heart. If you’re 70 and liberal, you have no brain. (Though I suspect many Hillsdale students would disagree.)Either way, I pride myself on trying to evaluate questions on their own merit, rather than falling into the trap of picking one side and believing everything it says and does is right. Just because Hunter Biden is a world-class sleaze does not mean the Trump family should try to profit from a private Trump-branded cryptocurrency, much less explicitly offer a chance to meet President Trump as a way to pump it.I have always considered myself not an ideologue, but a journalist first and foremost – a journalist with an edge and a point of view, but a journalist who follows the facts where they lead. I was that kind of journalist 20 years ago when I worked at The New York Times, I was that kind of journalist when I wrote Tell Your Children, I was that kind of journalist during Covid, and I am that kind of journalist today.In fact, I was proud to have the chance to spend a week as a journalism scholar-in-residence at Hillsdale’s campus in Michigan in the fall of 2021. At a time when my views about the mRNA Covid shots were considered so toxic even Twitter had banned me, Hillsdale stood by me.Almost five years later, liberals and conservatives have forgotten Covid – and the mRNAs and vaccine mandates too. The amnesia is regrettable but understandable. A lot of people, even some on the right, would rather forget their cowardice, how quickly they sacrificed schools and parks and civil liberties for themselves and their children for fears that turned out overblown.Plus the restrictions are long gone, leaving nothing to argue about. Because the epidemic did so little lasting damage, it’s easy to pretend the panic didn’t happen either.So 2021’s civil-liberties-focused anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine-mandate coalition on the right has disintegrated.—Meanwhile, any chance Republicans might move on from Donald Trump after the disgrace of January 6th ended when Democrats engaged in what can only be called “lawfare” against him in 2023. Prosecutors in my home state of New York aimed to bankrupt Trump for the crime of taking out loans he repaid in full and imprison him for the crime of winning the 2016 presidential election.Those risible efforts backfired completely, rallying Republicans around Trump by making clear Democrats would do anything to stop him. Today the right’s leading voices are either so completely in the tank for President Trump they will not entertain even reasonable criticism about him and his policies – or making fortunes selling conspiracies.I don’t fit in either camp. So lot of the people who wanted to platform me and talk to me in 2021 have moved on.So be it.No one has to open his audience to me, just as I do not have to open Unreported Truths – my Substack – to anyone else. But I am grateful to those people on the right who genuinely believe in independent thought, free speech, and the search for truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable. Hillsdale embodies that philosophy as deeply as any institution I have seen.That is why I would gladly take an invitation to speak from Hillsdale not just at a Ritz-Carlton but a Motel 6 – though I have a feeling the crowd might be a bit smaller there.Thanks, Dr. Arnn.—(Larry P. Arnn, the (surprisingly hilarious) president of Hillsdale College)—Whew.I promised you a few minutes ago I would link the bigger political issues I raised to the question of where cannabis stands today. Some of you can probably already see where I am going.Last week, President Trump officially “rescheduled” cannabis, sharply reducing the Drug Enforcement Administration’s restrictions on it. Technically, he moved cannabis from Schedule 1, the most restrictive DEA category, for drugs that have no approved medical uses, to Schedule 3, for drugs that do have uses as medicine but also carry some risks.At the moment, the order only applies to cannabis consumed “medically,” rather than recreationally, but the White House plans to reschedule recreational cannabis as well. It has announced DEA hearings to do so, beginning on June 29.I think this decision is wrong for many reasons. Cannabis advocates frequently object that cannabis should not be a “Schedule 1” drug. After all, cannabis is not nearly as dangerous or addictive as many other Schedule 1 drugs, such as heroin.They’re right that cannabis is not as dangerous as heroin. No one would seriously claim it is. But the DEA’s scheduling rules aren’t just about a drug’s dangers. They are about whether drugs have any accepted medical use. Cannabis does not. It is not medicine. The most basic reason is the most obvious. We do not smoke medicines.More broadly, it’s important to understand what medicines are – and are not. Medical drugs consist of chemical compounds or biological proteins given in doses that can be measured and tested for their ability to produce specific biological effects and treat specific diseases or conditions.Take 10 milligrams of Lipitor – atorvastatin – daily to lower your cholesterol. Come to a clinic for an infusion of Keytruda – a monoclonal antibody – to help your immune system fight cancer. Or receive fentanyl in the hospital after surgery to control your pain. That’s why fentanyl, for all its harms, is classified as a Schedule 2 drug by the DEA, not a Schedule 1.Unlike cannabis, it has an accepted medical use.Researching, developing and testing medical drugs this way is complex and expensive. But it tells us just how well they work, and how and why. Then physicians can prescribe them with confidence. That’s how we make medicines.One can pretend there are shortcuts around this process. There are not. “Holistic medicine” or “Eastern medicine” sound nice. Sometimes they make people feel better. But that’s usually because diseases, even fatal diseases, progress in stops and starts and because the placebo effect can be very powerful. Making drugs that work better than placebo is stunningly difficult.If “Eastern medicine” actually worked, China would not be investing trillions of dollars to recreate the American biomedical research and drug discovery complex.—(Not always successfully)—I am harping on this point because I believe it is crucial you understand cannabis is not a medicinal drug. To go back to the simplest possible explanation: we do not light medicines on fire and inhale them.Even though smoked cannabis flower is not a medicine, it is theoretically possible THC or other individual chemical compounds in the plant could be used medicinally. Over the last 30 years, scientists and drug companies have tested THC over and over for almost every imaginable illness or condition. But when it is subject to the kind of rigorous testing that makes a chemical a medicine, THC has nearly always failed to demonstrate its value.The list of FDA-approved uses for cannabis-derived chemicals is the same now as it was in 2019, when I wrote Tell Your Children. THC is approved for nausea associated with cancer. CBD, a chemical in cannabis that does not get users high, is approved for the treatment of epileptic seizures in children. And… well… that’s it. That’s the whole list.Cannabis is not medicine. It’s a recreational intoxicant.The disease it treats is called not being high.—It’s a long speech. Take a break to make a one-time donation!—As you’ve no doubt figured out, I don’t favor cannabis legalization.But if we are going to legalize cannabis and THC, we should do on the basis they are appropriate recreational drugs for adults to use, despite their dangers. In focusing on the wildly exaggerated medical benefits of cannabis to justify rescheduling, President Trump has gone in the other direction. His decision will only worsen the dangerous pretense of the medicinal value of cannabis.At the same time, it will pump the profits of an industry that has spent two years donating heavily to Trump – again encouraging the perception and belief this White House is at least as more money-hungry and beholden to donors as previous administrations. (Are you starting to see why no one invites me anywhere anymore?)President Trump’s decision to reduce restrictions on cannabis is particularly ironic because it comes at a moment when state-level cannabis legalization has demonstrably failed to have any of the positive impacts its backers have promised voters for 20 years.Cannabis advocates said legalization would put the illicit industry out of business and generate massive tax revenues. Nope. The legal industry has had a very hard time competing with the illicit market, particularly in high-tax, high-regulation states like California. Tax revenues have fallen far short of expectations and are actually declining in many states. Only yesterday a Bay Area newspaper wrote of “California’s failing cannabis industry.”Advocates said legalization would make cannabis more like alcohol, a drug many people use casually and infrequently at parties or social gatherings. That happy prediction has not really come true either. Casual use has risen only marginally. Instead, by sharply lowering the price while increasing the potency and availability of cannabis, as well as making it available in odorless and easy to use THC vapes and THC-infused beverages, legalization has sharply increased consumption by people who already use the drug.Almost 20 million people now use cannabis daily, more than the number who drink alcohol every day. Many take advantage of vapes to use covertly at work or school. Instead of a large number of casual users, legalization has created a relatively small but vocal minority of very heavy users – addicts by another name.—Backers said legalization would not impact road safety and might even help it, on the theory that driving high is safer than driving drunk. But fatal car crashes have jumped in the United States over the last decade, as have the number of crashes where the active metabolite of THC was found in the blood of driver. In one recent study in Ohio on drivers who died in crashes between 2019 and 2024, over 40 percent had THC in their blood, a level even the study’s author called “surprising.”Similarly, advocates said legalization would not hurt health and might even help it, because cannabis is less physically dangerous than alcohol and does not kill users through acute overdose. But cannabis and THC – particularly when they are consumed daily and in high doses – have turned out to have serious health risks of their own, particularly for heart attacks and stroke, the leading cause of death in the United States.A major study presented last year at the American College of Cardiology annual conference found cannabis users under age 50 were over six times as likely to suffer a heart attack as non-users. This risk rises both for smoked cannabis and for THC used in other ways, implying it is separate from the risks of smoking.Another unexpected and serious danger is severe cannabis-induced vomiting, which doctors call cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS. Heavy THC consumption seems to rewire the brains of some users to make them more nauseous when they use.Cannabis has also proven far more addictive than legalizers promised. Cannabis withdrawal does not produce the same acute physical effects as alcohol withdrawal by heavy users. But both scientific and anecdotal evidence now suggest cannabis is at least as addictive as alcohol physiologically, with as many as 30 percent of users meeting criteria for addiction. As the government of Canada now warns, “Continued, frequent and heavy cannabis use can cause physical dependency and addiction.”—(As well as the consumption of barely edible hamburgers)—Last but certainly not least, evidence for a link between cannabis and severe mental illness continues to grow.At this point, no one disputes cannabis and THC regularly cause transient episodes of paranoia and psychosis – that is, hallucinations, delusions, and detachment from reality. In fact, in its current high-strength form, cannabis essentially functions as a mild hallucinogen for many users.But scientists are also finding and reporting new evidence that cannabis can not just worsen but actually cause the lifelong psychotic disorder known as schizophrenia. Risks are particularly high for those who start in their early or mid-teens and use heavily. I made this connection in Tell Your Children in 2019, drawing on scientific and epidemiological evidence from all over the world. The book infuriated the cannabis industry, which claimed I was alarmist, had overstated the evidence, or just didn’t understand the science behind it. But I was simply telling the truth, a truth cannabis advocates wanted to shout down because they feared it might hurt support for legalization.In the seven years since Tell Your Children, the evidence has only strengthened. Two of the most disturbing studies are among the most recent. Both come from our neighbor to the north, the country I sometimes like to call America’s Hat (TM) – Canada, which fully legalized cannabis for recreational use in 2018, after allowing widespread “medical” use since 2001.The first study was published just over a year ago by researchers who examined a massive healthcare database in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. After examining health records of almost 14 million teens and adults, the researchers found schizophrenia associated with heavy cannabis use rose from under 4 percent of cases before Canada legalized cannabis to over 10 percent after legalization – and almost 20 percent among men aged 19-24.The second came out this February. It covered over 12 million Canadians and showed that rates of psychotic disorders had risen 60 percent in Canadian teens and young adults from 1997 to 2023, while remaining stable among older Canadians.Together, the two studies provide powerful evidence that cannabis use does indeed cause schizophrenia and that its harmful effects can now be seen on a population-wide level.Fortunately, schizophrenia, which usually develops in the late teens or early to mid-20s, is relatively rare. Researchers estimate its baseline level is about 1 in 150 people worldwide. So even if teen cannabis use results in a sharply increased risk, a relatively small number of young people are likely to suffer its consequences. Still, the risk is real, and schizophrenia is such a devastating disease –for its sufferers and their families – that we should do everything we can to prevent it.—(You’re almost done! But my work is only beginning.)—I would argue (and I have) that risk alone should be enough to keep cannabis illegal.Again, though, at a minimum, if we are going to legalize, we should do so on the basis cannabis is a recreational drug for adults – like alcohol. We should not pretend it has medicinal value, particularly for psychiatric conditions like anxiety disorders and depression. Most of all, we should not pretend it is appropriate for teenagers.Yet many states have set the legal age for medicinal marijuana use at 18.—(Yep, this actually happened.)—In February, The New York Times published a stunning editorial headlined, “It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem.”The Times wrote:This editorial board has long supported marijuana legalization… [and] predicted that it would bring few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and dependence as “relatively minor problems.” Many advocates went further and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to greater use.It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong.Oops.When even the New York Times admits you’re right, you’re right.But if I have won the argument scientifically and medically, I have lost it culturally and politically. Decades of stories from the Times and other mainstream media outlets about the virtues of cannabis and cannabis legalization did their job too well. Support for full legalization has fallen slightly in the last couple of years as its downsides become more apparent, particularly to the parents of teens and young adults who are using heavily. But legalization still commands over 60 percent support among American voters, and even more among young people.Now President Trump has done what Joe Biden and Barack Obama would not, and moved to put a federal stamp of approval on cannabis. Rescheduling is not full legalization, but it is a powerful step in that direction, which is why the stocks of cannabis companies jumped sharply after the President announced his initial plans in December.President Trump has many larger concerns than the legal status of cannabis. I understand his decision to reschedule from a political point of view. But I wish he had held the line. It is more than a little ironic that a teetotaling Republican who will soon be the oldest President in the history of the United States will go down as the man who set the stage for the full legalization of cannabis on the federal level.But that’s where we are.And, please, don’t get me started on psychedelics.—Yep, that was it. You’re done. Celebrate with a one-time donation!—Thanks again to Hillsdale and Dr. Arnn for giving me the chance to speak.I’m happy to take questions.
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