We used to tell our kids that marijuana was a harmless rite of passage long before we knew better. Today’s cannabis market looks nothing like the backyard joints of previous generations — THC concentrations have climbed dramatically, and that change matters because science now links high-potency products to real, career- and life-ending mental illness. Recent multi-site research found that daily use of high-THC cannabis substantially raises the odds of a first episode of psychosis, and in some cities high-potency cannabis appears to explain a significant share of new psychotic disorders.
This isn’t abstract academic fearmongering; these are young men and women showing up in emergency rooms convinced they’re being persecuted or that they’re someone else entirely. The evidence is clear that frequent use of THC-heavy products multiplies the risk of psychosis compared with never-users, and daily use of the strongest strains can push vulnerable teens over the edge. Parents and communities need to wake up to the modern reality: legalization and commercialization have flooded the market with supercharged products that are not safe for young brains.
Vape pens turned out to be another catastrophe waiting to happen when low-regulation markets met cheap, illicit manufacturing. The 2019 EVALI outbreak showed that THC cartridges from informal sources often contained contaminants like vitamin E acetate and were strongly linked to severe lung injury and hospitalizations, underlining how disposable, high-intensity vaping devices can be downright toxic. This is a public-health failure, born of permissiveness and profiteering, that disproportionately harms the young and the reckless.
And then there’s the delta-8 craze — a synthetic, legally fuzzy cousin of delta-9 that’s been repackaged into candies and vape carts and sold to impressionable kids and busy parents alike. Federal regulators have repeatedly warned that delta-8 products are untested, often contaminated, and have caused adverse events including hallucinations, vomiting, and hospital visits; companies selling copycat snack items laced with psychoactive cannabinoids are literally inviting kids to be poisoned. No libertarian piety about “freedom to choose” should blind us to the fact that vendors are weaponizing novelty and loopholes against our children.
The good news is that many solutions don’t come in a pill bottle. Solid clinical trials show that basic, back-to-basics interventions — better diet, regular exercise, more social connection, less screen time — can produce meaningful improvements in depression, and dietary and exercise interventions have posted results comparable to conventional pharmacotherapy in many studies. Before we funnel kids into lifelong drug regimens, clinicians and families ought to exhaust proven lifestyle approaches that strengthen bodies and minds and don’t come with a tray of side effects or a lifetime of dependence.
So what should conservatives who actually love their country and families do about it? First, hold Big Government and Big Business to account simultaneously: demand strict regulation of THC potency, enforce standards for vape products, and close the loopholes that let synthetic cannabinoids masquerade as legal snacks. Second, rebuild community institutions — churches, schools, families — that provide purpose and belonging so young people aren’t self-medicating loneliness and despair with neurotoxic highs. No one else will love our kids more than we do; it’s time to act like it.
Finally, stop treating addiction and mental health like mere criminal problems or profit centers for tech and pharma. Encourage personal responsibility, insist on parental oversight, and fund real prevention — not more pills and not more permissive markets. We can have compassion without surrendering common sense, and we can protect liberty while refusing to normalize products that erode the next generation’s minds and futures.
