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Alex Berenson wrote, “Tell Your Children The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence” in which he exposes six myths about marijuana. In Part 1, the information about how marijuana became a medicine was related. The story reveals the first myth: marijuana is a medicine. Marijuana may have some benefit for cancer-related wasting. However, this has not been proven since THC (one active ingredient of marijuana) nor cannabis itself has ever been show to work in randomized clinical trials. These are the only trials that reliably prove a drug works. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never approved marijuana as a medicine (p. xix). Marijuana is still considered an illegal drug by the Federal government. An Australian study recently cast doubt on its effectiveness in chronic pain (p. xviii). In the mid-1970’s marijuana consumed in the U. S. was less than 2 percent THC. Today, it is 25 percent THC. The marijuana being used today is much more potent. Heavy use of cannabis in the U. S. has soared in the last decade–nearly tripling (p. xix). Two hundred million Americans have gained access to medical or recreational marijuana in the last twenty years. These facts mean that we really do not know how marijuana use will affect the general public.
Myth Number Two: marijuana is harmless. Marijuana causes schizophrenia and psychosis. Schizophrenia and psychosis cause violence. These facts are the main thesis of Berenson’s book. THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) is one of the active chemicals in marijuana. THC induces euphoria, enhances sensation, distorts the perception of time, and increases hunger. Marijuana is an intoxicant (similar to alcohol) and a psychoactive drug (a mind altering drug). The dangerous effects of marijuana are one reason that it has been illegal in the U. S. (marijuana is still illegal on the Federal level, but some states have begun to legalize it medically and others both medically and recreationally).
Myth number three: there are no documented deaths due to marijuana. Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate for president said this in August, 2016. He is wrong. Cannabis can be lethal in many ways. First, it increases the risk of heart attack. Second, marijuana impaired driving is killing people on our highways. Third, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) relates that more than 1,000 people died between 1999 and 2016 and cannabis or cannabinoids and no other drugs were listed on their death certificates as a secondary cause (p. xx).
Myth Number Four: marijuana can help stem the opiate epidemic by weaning people off of drugs like heroin. In fact, Berenson observes, marijuana is a gateway drug that often leads to use of other drugs (p. xxi). Opiate deaths are rising as fast or faster in states that have legalized cannabis (p. xxi).
Myth Number Five: marijuana does not cause mental illness. The first comprehensive guide to herbs and drugs ever created, A Chinese pharmacopeia called the Pen-ts’ao Ching, warned that excessive cannabis smoking caused “seeing devils” (p. xxiii). By about 100 A.D., Chinese physicians believed the drug “stimulated uncontrollable violence and criminal inclinations” (p. xxiii). Most will not have a psychotic episode while using marijuana, but a minority will and doctors have no way of predicting who they will be (p. xxiv). The link between marijuana and mental illness has been proven. The National Academy of Medicine issued a 468-page research report, titled, “The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids.” They state, “Cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk” (p. xxv). The number of people showing up in hospitals with psychosis has soared since 2006, alongside marijuana use. Emergency rooms saw a 50 percent increase in the number of cases where someone received a primary diagnosis of a psychotic disorder between 2006 and 2014. By 2014, more than 2,000 Americans eery day showed up or were brought to emergency rooms for schizophrenia and other psychoses–810,000 people in all (p. xxvi). By 2014, 11 percent of Americans who showed up in emergency rooms with a psychotic disorder also had a secondary diagnosis of marijuana misuse (p. xxvi). Mexico criminalized marijuana in 1920, 17 years before the U. S. after Mexican lawmakers became convinced the drug caused mental illness and violence (p. xxix).
Myth Number six: violence has fallen in states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use. In 2017, Cory Booker, a democratic senator from New Jersey, introduced a bill to legalize marijuana nationally. Booker said that states that have legalized marijuana “are seeing decreases in violent crime” (p. xxxi). Booker is wrong. Berenson provides much more information in his book and sites many studies that prove his thesis. Marijuana is a dangerous drug that should continue to be illegal in the U.S.

Alex Berenson has written an important book that reveals the truth about marijuana. The book is titled, Tell Your Children The Truth About Marijuana.
Berenson destroys six myths about marijuana. But, before we examine each myth, the story about how marijuana came to be used as medicine needs to be known. Ethan Nedelmann is perhaps the most influential person behind the movement to legalize medical marijuana. Nadelmann was born in 1957 and grew up in Westchester County, north of New York City. He went to college at McGill in Montreal before transferring to Harvard. He graduated in 1979 and entered a joint law-PhD program also at Harvard. The drug war grabbed his attention. He decided to write his PhD thesis about the effort to block supply of drugs from the source on an international level. Nadelmann opposed America’s war on drugs. In 1992, Nadelmann met George Soros for lunch. Soros was a billionaire at the time and was interested in liberalizing drug policy. In 1994, Nadelmann, with Soros’ backing, started the Lindesmith Center (Alfred Lindesmith was a sociologist who questioned whether drugs were as addictive as they seemed). In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected president of the United States. In that same year, Proposition 215 took off from San Francisco and Nadelmann became involved. Prop 215 was the first medical marijuana initiative. It offered to give California’s voters the chance to change the state’s laws so that anyone 18 or older could use marijuana with a physician’s authorization. Initiatives allow voters to vote yes or no on issues directly. They don’t exist on the national level. California is one of the states where they are most frequently used. Lester Grinspoon in Marijuana Reconsidered, devoted a thirteen page chapter to the idea of medical marijuana, but otherwise the concept did not receive much attention. Not much thought was given to marijuana as medicine. However, AIDS activists in San Francisco began using marijuana to treat AIDS-related wasting. Clinical trials would show that marijuana was only marginally helpful in treating the syndrome. Activists insisted that dying patients should be able to use marijuana. Nadelmann paid for a private statewide poll to see if Prop 215 had a chance to win. To his surprise, it did. He brought the results to George Soros who liked the idea of medical marijuana and spent $550,000.00 to back the initiative. Two other rich men were supporters: Peter Lewis, the billionaire chairman of Progressive Insurance and George Zimmer, the founder of Men’s Warehouse who, together, added another $750,000.00. Lewis and Zimmer actively used marijuana. On Nov. 5, 1996, Prop. 215 won approval in California–clearing the way for medical marijuana use in the state and eventually across America. The long-term importance of Prop. 215 is hard to overstate. Also, in 1996, Bill Clinton won re-election as president of the U.S. The concept of medical marijuana is really a misnomer. The Food and Drug Administration has never approved of marijuana as a medicine! (Part 2 to follow).

Graham Bell, James McGill Professor at McGill University in Montreal, and author of the Masterpiece of Nature: The Evolution of Genetics and Sexuality, provides the headline, “The Queen of Evolutionary Problems.” Bell states, “Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. Perhaps no other natural phenomenon has aroused so much interest; certainly none has sowed as much confusion. The insights of Darwin and Mendel, which have illuminated so many mysteries have so far failed to shed more than a dim and wavering light on the central mystery of sexuality” (F. LaGard Smith, Darwin’s Secret Sex Problem, 160).

The Problem
“There is no viable evolutionary explanation for the existence of male/female meiotic sexual reproduction (Ibid. 88). Lacking any sexual DNA, mitosis could not have provided either the information or mechanisms required for the radically different process of meiosis (Ibid. 88).

What is Mitosis and Meiosis?
Mitosis is a process of cell reproduction that is observed in one-cell organisms and human cell growth.  No male and no female are involved in producing cell duplication. Mitosis is a process of cell duplication, or reproduction, during which one cell gives rise to two genetically identical daughter cells. Before a cell divides to make two cells, it copies all of its chromosomes.  These copies, called sister chromatids, are identical.  The result of this cell division is two identical cells each having 46 chromosomes.  
Meiosis is a type of cell division that results in reducing the number of chromosomes in half and creating genetic diversity.  “Meiosis begins like mitosis: the cell copies each chromosome.  But unlike in mitosis, homologous chromosome pairs line up and exchange pieces-a process called recombination. Remember, homologous chromosomes have the same genes but with slight differences. Recombination increases genetic diversity by putting pieces of slightly different chromosomes together” (https://learn. genetics.utah. edu/content/ basics/diagnose/). Then, the two newly combined homologous chromosomes are divided into two daughter cells which have 23 chromosomes having a unique combination of gene variations. This process of cell division produces egg and sperm cells.  Through the process of fertilization, the egg and sperm cells combine to make a cell with 46 chromosomes called a zygote.  The process of fertilization involves a male and a female of the same species.  
Mitosis and meiosis are both processes which describe the production of new cells. Mitosis produces two daughter cells which are genetically identical to the parent cell. Each daughter cell is diploid (contains the normal number of chromosomes). This is the result of DNA replication and 1 cell division. Mitosis is used in growth and asexual reproduction. Meiosis produces 4 daughter cells, each of which are unidentical to the parent cell and to one another. Each daughter cell is haploid (contains half the number of normal chromosomes). This is the result of DNA replication, followed by crossing over of homologous chromosomes and separation of chromosomes. There are two cell divisions: the parent cell divides once and then each cell produced by this first division divides once. Meiosis is used to produce gametes (sperm and egg cells), the cells of sexual reproduction. Two gametes fuse to form a zygote, a diploid cell with the full number of chromosomes.

Evolution Refuted
Evolution theory teaches that the first organisms simply copied themselves (mitosis). Consequently, normative gendered sex as seen throughout nature could not have begun without the appearance of the first-ever male and female organisms, mating in a never-before-seen way, and reproducing by a revolutionary method of reducing their chromosomes precisely by half then blending those halves together to produce one-of-a-kind offspring (Ibid. xxi). The queen of evolution’s problems is to explain how those first-ever sexually reproducing organisms possibly could have evolved before sexual reproduction existed. Evolutionists have failed to show how organisms could go from mitosis to meioses through gradation. The process of sexual reproduction is irreducibly complex. Consequently, there are no steps from mitosis to meiosis.

Darwins’ Admission
Darwin states, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down” (Ibid. xi). It is impossible for organisms to evolve through gradual steps from mitosis to meiosis.

Creation’s Affirmation
The creation account in Genesis 1 affirms that every creature is created by God and is capable of bearing after its kind. This is the law of kinds. Jesus affirms the truthfulness of this law in Matthew 7:16-ff. Microbe to man evolution is false.