This video is straight propaganda disguised as journalism. The claims aren’t supported by any statewide data, so here’s what Massachusetts actually looks like after nearly a decade of legal cannabis.
Addiction rates in Massachusetts haven’t skyrocketed as predicted. They remain in the low single digits for the general adult population.
National numbers haven’t meaningfully changed in a decade. The major studies (NSDUH and NESARC) show no massive spike. What has changed is access to treatment, because cannabis tax revenue now funds programs the state never had money for before.
Psychosis rates tell the same story. Every time a headline warns about “cannabis induced schizophrenia,” researchers check population data, and the result doesn’t budge. There is no surge in psychosis after legalization in Colorado, Washington, California, or Massachusetts.
The large studies from 2023 to 2025 in the UK, Denmark, Canada, and the US say the same thing. If someone already has a strong genetic risk, very heavy use can move the timeline up a bit. But overall population rates don’t suddenly jump.
Youth cannabis use has actually gone down, despite what the talking points claim. In Massachusetts, teen use dropped from 24% in 2016 (before legalization) to around 18% today. Early legal states show the same downward trend. Colorado’s teen use rate is down 35% from its peak. Regulated retail ID checks do what the illicit market never did. Drug dealers don’t check IDs.
Here’s what actually happened instead in MA:
-More than 100,000 fewer cannabis arrests since reforms began which consists of mostly young Black and Latino people who no longer end up with a record.
-Everything sold in a regulated dispensary is lab tested, so pesticides and contaminated products don’t reach consumers.
-Nearly $2 billion in cannabis tax revenue in Massachusetts alone, funding schools, addiction treatment, veterans programs, and infrastructure.
The only “promise” that never came true was the prediction that society would collapse. It didn’t.
Scrapping the entire legal system and handing the market back to street dealers because of a few sensational headlines doesn’t protect anyone. It just gives cartels and gangs their untaxed and unregulated illicit market back.
Massachusetts voters approved cannabis legalization in 2016 by seven points. Almost a decade later, the results are right in front of us.
Don’t let this reefer madness era propaganda fool you.
Has weed culture in the U.S. peaked? The Free Press’s Josh Code on a 2026 Massachusetts ballot initiative that would end the use of legal recreational marijuana in the state.
“Americans are waking up to the fact that weed legalization was not what they were promised,” he says.
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