In the year after Maryland legalized adult-use marijuana, over $1 billion in cannabis sales poured through dispensaries. Sadly for my community, two of them are right here in Cecil County. Supporters are quick to celebrate this as a sign of progress. They point to sleek storefronts, well-dressed customers and rising tax revenues. A recent article reassured readers that dispensaries like Elkton’s Far and Dotter are “always buzzing” and filled with people simply trying to “live their best self.”

But what happens when the buzz wears off?

The truth is, legalized marijuana is no gift to our community. It’s a growing public health concern, especially for our youth. And no amount of marketing spin can erase the mounting evidence that cannabis, particularly the highly potent products sold in today’s dispensaries, carries serious consequences for mental health, addiction and community wellbeing.

Let’s start with the most misleading claim in the legalization playbook: that cannabis is primarily used “therapeutically” by responsible adults. According to advocates, the average dispensary customer is just trying to sleep better, manage stress or relax. But this conflates medical use with recreational use. There is a vast difference between physician-supervised medical treatment and self-medicating with high-THC concentrates that are three to five times stronger than marijuana from a generation ago.

But wait. There is more.

Even Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program, hailed as a cautious, regulated alternative, has been plagued by abuse, with a handful of doctors approving thousands of certifications each year and state officials admitting they lack the authority to properly audit or oversee the system, as Spotlight PA recently reported.

Recent research confirms what many of us already see anecdotally: The legal cannabis market has normalized frequent, high-dose use, particularly among young adults. In fact, states that have legalized recreational marijuana show a sharp rise in daily or near-daily use — the strongest predictor of dependency. That’s not therapy. That’s addiction.

Even users admit to developing a psychological dependency on weed, struggling to eat without it, and these warnings are buried beneath glowing quotes about the industry’s “variety” and “safety.”

Here’s another myth worth busting: Legalization ends the black market. In reality, it has created two cannabis economies — legal and illegal. Users who want to bypass purchase limits or high taxes still turn to street dealers. According to a 2024 RAND report, California, arguably the most mature legal cannabis market, continues to see more than 60% of its cannabis sold through unlicensed dealers.

Closer to home, Maryland’s taxes on adult-use weed are about to jump from 9% to 12%. With that hike, we can expect even more people to bypass dispensaries, pushing the illegal market further underground and undoing one of the legalization movement’s biggest promises.

Then there’s the question of economic benefit. Maryland pulled in $73 million in weed-related tax revenue last year. That may sound like a windfall, but it’s pennies compared to the long-term costs to the community. Marijuana-impaired driving is on the rise. Emergency room visits for cannabis-related psychosis and anxiety have spiked in other legal states. And the social costs of increased addiction, workforce accidents, lower productivity and strain on schools and law enforcement are rarely factored into the math.

Worse, very little of this dirty money actually benefits Cecil County or any other county directly. Just 5% of the tax revenue is shared with counties. Schools, drug treatment centers and mental health services, the places where harm shows up, are left to figure it out with no new resources.

To be sure, not everyone who walks into a dispensary is a stoner or addict. Some, believing the false advertising, are likely just looking for relief. But policy isn’t about anecdotal exceptions or about intent. Good policy is about patterns and about the actual consequences of policies. And the patterns and consequences are increasingly clear: High-potency cannabis is harmful, the black market hasn’t gone away and the long-term negative costs of normalization are real.

Cecil County is already feeling the consequences of policies driven more by profit than by public health. Local and state leaders must stop taking the industry’s word at face value and start asking the hard questions about harmful long-term impact on families, youth and community wellbeing.

Legal weed may be here. But that doesn’t mean it’s helping us. It’s time for Maryland lawmakers in both parties to stand up to the big-cannabis lobby and begin the hard but necessary work of reversing marijuana legalization.

Josue Sierra is a marketing and communications executive and consultant to the Maryland Family Institute. He is a long-time resident of Cecil County, Maryland.