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Every day in america over 20,000 phone calls are made to authorities to report a domestic dispute. Intimate partner abuse makes up for an astounding 15% of all violent crime in this country. The issue is very real and archaic cannabis legislation is making it impossible for some victims to escape.
It happens more often than we realize, a person is caught up in an abusive relationship and one or both parties involved are cannabis users. The victim may take relief in cannabis from the abuse they experience day to day and the abuser may or may not consume with their victim but either way; the victim is left in a position where they are unable to call on the very people put in place to protect them in fear their abuser will point the finger in their direction for the cannabis in the house when authorities arrive.
On October 14th, 2019: Rochester First reports that a couple in Lyons, NY was arrested after Wayne County Sheriff’s deputies arrived to investigate a domestic incident. When police arrived cannabis was found hanging in their child’s bedroom closet. Both parents were arrested for endangering the welfare of a child. The article makes no mention of what came of the domestic dispute claim that mobilized police to begin with.
Was the call made by the victim, a neighbor or a concerned friend or family member?
Was anyone hurt in the alleged confrontation?
Does the cannabis in the closet pose a bigger threat to that child than the domestic dispute itself?
Will this child end up in a foster home instead of the loving arms of one of its parents?
How do we justify separating families over a plant while ignoring their calls for help in a domestic dispute?
This is just one example of the many ways that prohibition is responsible for the trauma of millions. How many children were kept from a parent because of that parents cannabis use? It’s time that we speak up! Only through outreach and harsh doses of reality has anything ever changed. Stop separating families over a plant!
Studies over time of cannabis use and partner violence examined “patterns of marijuana use and the occurrence of violence within a year period. It does not examine whether using marijuana on a given day reduces the likelihood of violence at that time,” according to Kenneth Leonard, director of the UB Research Institute on Addictions and lead investigator of a recent study.
In contrast, recent more detailed studies show “users exhibit "blunted emotional reaction to threat stimuli." Simply put, smoking decreases a person’s reaction to the “fight or flight” syndrome. Married couples who get stoned together experience a significant decrease in the likelihood of acting out in an aggressive manner.” according to an article posted on the study at Project Know
FINAL THOUGHTS....
As it stands now, cannabis prohibition can be used as a tool that allows abusive people to manipulate their victims. Among other things, an end to prohibition would put an end to a certain percentage of domestic abuse cases as well as family separation cases. One more example of how cannabis rights are human rights and laws restricting its use, possession or growth are the real threat to society, not the plant itself.
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