Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence [Audiobook]

An eye-opening report from an award-winning author and former New York Times reporter reveals the link between teenage marijuana use and mental illness, and a hidden epidemic of violence caused by the drug - facts the media has ignored as the US rushes to legalize cannabis

Recreational marijuana is now legal in nine states. Almost all Americans believe the drug should be legal for medical use. Advocates argue cannabis can help everyone from veterans to cancer sufferers. But legalization has been built on myths - that marijuana arrests fill prisons; that most doctors want to use cannabis as medicine; that it can somehow stem the opiate epidemic; that it is not just harmless but beneficial for mental health. In this meticulously reported audiobook, Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, explodes those myths

Almost no one is in prison for marijuana

A tiny fraction of doctors write most authorizations for medical marijuana, mostly for people who have already used

Marijuana use is linked to opiate and cocaine use. Since 2008, the US and Canada have seen soaring marijuana use and an opiate epidemic. Britain has falling marijuana use and no epidemic

Most of all, THC - the chemical in marijuana responsible for the drug’s high - can cause psychotic episodes. After decades of studies, scientists no longer seriously debate if marijuana causes psychosis

Psychosis brings violence, and cannabis-linked violence is spreading. In the four states that first legalized, murders have risen 25 percent since legalization, even more than the recent national increase. In Uruguay, which allowed retail sales in July 2017, murders have soared this year

Berenson’s reporting ranges from the London institute that is home to the scientists who helped prove the cannabis-psychosis link to the Colorado prison where a man now serves a 30-year sentence after eating a THC-laced candy bar and killing his wife. He sticks to the facts, and they are devastating

With the US already gripped by one drug epidemic, this audiobook will make listeners reconsider if marijuana use is worth the risk.