Rescheduling marijuana would open the door for Big Weed to go mainstream. Businesses now operating in a legal grey area could licitly deduct business expenses, access capital, and advertise openly. National brands could arise, running spots during football games, offering intro deals via popular podcasters, and promising to deliver high-quality weed straight to your door—use promo code CHEECH.
Cultivating a massive new industry dedicated to getting more Americans using marijuana more frequently would tear at the nation’s social and economic fabric. Already, weed’s impact on the labor force is raising concerns: a decade after the first states legalized recreational pot, positive tests for marijuana following on-the-job accidents tripled, according to the Wall Street Journal.
While most regular marijuana users avoid dependency, many do not. One in five lifetime marijuana users exhibit some sign of cannabis use disorder. For young people, especially, the drug is associated with lower educational achievement, lower levels of earnings and connection to work, and reduced likelihood to marry.
Is it hard to prove definitively that the causal arrow runs from pot to rot? Of course. A young man without positive role models, a sporadic job, and few romantic connections might certainly be more likely to use weed. But even without such iron-clad statistical proof, our declining marriage and fertility rates should make us deeply cautious about the signals we’re sending to young men. There are plenty of reasons to believe that young men whose social lives revolve around getting high are less marriageable than we would like.
Widespread social acceptance of marijuana for adults also inevitably means that more kids and teens get exposed, either accidentally or intentionally. According to the New York Times, cannabis-related incidents reported to poison-control centers have increased over 23 times since 2009, and three-quarters of the cases reported last year involved children or teens.
In Philadelphia, a physician at Temple University Hospital told reporters cannabis poisonings involving children have become “almost a daily occurrence.” A pediatrician in Charlotte, North Carolina, recounted seeing “floridly psychotic 2-year-olds” due to accidentally consuming someone’s cannabis-infused gummies. Read more»
Patrick T. Brown | “Reclassifying Pot Would Hurt Young Men” | August 20, 2025
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