Megyn Kelly recently sat down with Alex Berenson on her show to do what too many in the mainstream press refuse to do: call out the modern marijuana industry for what it is—an increasingly potent source of real harm for vulnerable young people. Berenson, author and investigative journalist, laid out the central thesis plainly on the program, warning that today’s cannabis products are not the harmless “herb” of decades past and that the culture’s normalization of pot has real consequences.
Berenson’s argument is backed by a body of work and reporting that should make every parent sit up and pay attention; his book and writing trace the link between high-THC cannabis and an elevated risk of psychosis in some users. The science he cites is not conjecture but a compilation of studies and clinical observations showing that heavy teen use, especially of high-potency products, increases the danger of long-term psychiatric disorders.
The products on the market now—vape cartridges, dabs, and gummies with enormous milligrams of THC—make it trivially easy for a kid to consume a dose that would have been unimaginable in the marijuana of the 1970s. Berenson and others have documented how potency has skyrocketed and how extracts that are nearly pure THC can trigger psychotic episodes or addiction in susceptible people, a reality the sober observer cannot ignore.
Yet at the same moment experts are warning about harms, political elites and Big Marijuana lobbyists push policies that normalize and even celebrate the drug, culminating in federal moves to downgrade marijuana’s classification. President Trump’s December 18, 2025 executive action to push rescheduling to Schedule III is being sold as “common sense,” but anyone who cares about public safety must ask whether government signals like that will be read by a generation as a green light.
This is not an argument to criminalize sick people or to ignore medical research; it is an argument against the casual, celebratory messaging that has put millions of young Americans at risk. Rescheduling and research are one thing; tossing aside decades of evidence about youth vulnerability and pretending this is harmless is another. Conservatives should demand policies that protect children, fund honest research, and clamp down on marketing that targets teenagers.
If we are going to be a country that values family, faith, and the future, we must stop surrendering our kids to an industry that profits from increasingly dangerous highs while insisting everything is safe. Parents, local leaders, and conservatives nationwide need to push back against sanitizing narratives, insist on truth in public health messaging, and restore the stigma around recreational drug use for the good of our communities. Alex Berenson has been a rare voice telling those hard truths; it’s time we listened and acted.
