Tell Your Children: The Truth about Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence

by Alex Berenson

Overview

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 have ignored as the United States 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 book, 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 thirty-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 book will make readers reconsider if marijuana use is worth the risk.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982103668
Publisher:	Free Press
Publication date:	01/08/2019
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Alex Berenson is a former New York Times reporter and award-winning novelist. He attended Yale University and joined the Times in 1999, where he covered everything from the drug industry to Hurricane Katrina and served as a correspondent in Iraq. In 2006, The Faithful Spy, his debut novel, won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel. He has since written twelve more novels and a nonfiction book, Tell Your Children. Currently, he lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife and children.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Everything You're About to Read Is True xi

Part 1 Then And Now

1 Madness on Two Continents 3

2 Schizophrenia, (Mis)Understood 17

3 Getting High in the 1970s 33

4 The First Real Proof 47

5 Medical Marijuana Wins 57

Part 2 Proof

6 A Round-the-World Search for Evidence 81

7 An Unlikely Theory Gains Traction 101

8 Study After Study After Study 120

9 Stories from the Front Lines 128

10 An Epidemic Arrives 140

Part 3 The Red Tide

11 Laboratory Studies, Real-World Facts 165

12 Axes and Knives 179

13 One Bad Trip 192

14 Myths, Spreading 209

Epilogue: What Now? 219

Acknowledgments 229

Editorial Reviews

12/03/2018
A novelist and former New York Times reporter, Berenson (The Deceivers) brings strong persuasive skills, acknowledgment his cause may be lost, and frustrated desperation to this antimarijuana manifesto. Berenson compiles the strongest research he can find, including repurposed analysis of studies focused on related topics, international studies, sensational true-crime narratives, government data, and discussions with primary researchers, to make the case that marijuana is dangerous to the brain and associated with increased risks of developing schizophrenia or experiencing psychotic episodes. He argues that presentations of marijuana as a powerful medicine is misleading—only the CBD component has been FDA approved as a seizure treatment and the evidence for effective use beyond mild pain relief is weak—and sees the emphasis on medical use as paving the way for a business-centered legalization model in which high-THC products are king. Berenson also pushes back on the idea of legalization as a panacea for the opiate crisis or drug-linked crime, but primarily he aims to refute a widespread image of marijuana as an enjoyable, mellow, and harmless mild intoxicant. Those who favor legalization are likely to remain unmoved, but Berenson is certainly meticulous and coherent about making his case, and his well-written treatise never descends into Reefer Madness–like hysteria. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Berenson has done an important public service...[Tell Your Children] could save a few lives."

The Guardian

“Takes a sledgehammer to the promised benefits of marijuana legalization, and cannabis enthusiasts are not going to like it one bit.

Mother Jones

A brilliant antidote to all the...false narratives about pot out there.

American Thinker

"Filled with statistics that shock."

The Times of London

"[Alex Berenson] has a reporter's tenacity, a novelist's imagination, and an outsider's knack for asking intemperate questions. The result is disturbing."

The New Yorker - Malcolm Gladwell

"The stakes are high...aren't we better off listening to Berenson than to some marijuana magnate?"

The Spectator

An intensively researched and passionate dissent from the now prevailing view that marijuana is relatively harmless.

The Marshall Project

"An interesting book that should be read by all concerned."

The Washington Times

"[Alex Berenson] has a reporter's tenacity, a novelist's imagination, and an outsider's knack for asking intemperate questions. The result is disturbing."

The New Yorker - Malcom Gladwell

An intensively researched and passionate dissent from the now prevailing view that marijuana is relatively harmless.

The Marshal Project