Posted on November 16, 2022 View all news
By Joe Tilton
Email arrived this week from a Michigan couple who are in serious agony over the death of their 25-year-old son. Marijuana took his life on May 14th.
Zackary Richard Podkul earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technical University. He suffered from a non-lethal disease and believed rumors that marijuana was a great pain reliever. This young Christian man, seeing how Michigan made it legal, gave it a try, and died.
Now, the Podkul family is reaching out to me for understanding and comfort since my son lost his battle with marijuana addiction nearly three years ago.
Our two families are not the only ones. Hundreds in every state are going through the same thing while the “industry” keeps promoting how “it never killed anybody” and selling introduction products called “CBD” oil for pain relief and other claims slammed down by the Food and Drug Administration. Claims of “zero THC content” are promoted even on conservative media, but “zero” is considered to be three-percent or less, the same potency as pot smoked in the ‘60’s that messed up a generation.
So many research results are flooding in that it’s not possible to print it all in this publication. What’s being discovered is worse than we’ve previously thought. At this point, and with the Covid-19 pandemic, the big-pot industry is pushing Congress to allow them to get loans. See HR 6602. The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed H.R. 6800, called “The Heros Act, which was opposed by all Republicans but one. Now it goes to the Senate where both our senators (Democrats) are most likely going to vote for it to pay back contributions from the pro-pot industry. This Act has provisions to give the marijuana industry all they want in terms of loans and access to banking. See Section 110606. And, it requires the Comptroller General to carry out a study on the barriers to marketplace entry and access to financial services for minority-owned marijuana-related businesses.
This is the place to stop and think. Smoking or vaping marijuana causes damage to the respiratory systems of the body. Minorities, specifically African-Americans have been targeted by the pot industry, which is the same group we are told is suffering more from Covid-19 than other groups. A most-serious finding by the California Environmental Protection Agency found marijuana’s effect on various immune functions. Cellular immunity is impaired, along with pulmonary and impaired ability to fight infections in humans. Also reference the New England Journal of Medicine. And they call it a medicine?
The U.S. House of Representatives leadership (Pelosi) is hiding behind the “social justice” issue to support assistance to ethnic drug dealers to set up drug dealing marijuana businesses in “under-served” ethnic communities, which are the most negatively impacted by drug dealing and addiction. This is not assistance, it’s abuse.
Marijuana sales are illegal under federal law. Is it proper for federal funds to pay for illegal activities? But, states have allowed marijuana and liquor stores to stay open as essential businesses, and pot shops are reporting record sales, with sharp increases in March and April. Are they financially hurting? Why then, are they asking for loans derived from your tax dollars?
Perhaps it’s a coincidence that riots are happening among the most dominant marijuana-use communities. Certainly Washington State is most liberal with cannabis, and so are many major, Democratically-run cities and states, including Michigan. This self-delusional drug not only kills the body, it kills our sense of responsibility to law and order, peace and safety. What horrible results come from delusion when it’s a convenient excuse for lack or responsibility and reason.
For the Podkul family and mine, the price paid by our sons and our agony from believing the lies supported by delusion is greater than anything imaginable.
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