Groton — With five states, including neighboring Massachusetts, voting Tuesday on whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use, Connecticut public health advocates, lawmakers and other residents need to be aware that the big-money forces behind those initiatives won’t stop there.

Delivering that call to action Thursday were two speakers from Project SAM, or Smart Approaches to Marijuana, who urged an audience of police officers, local leaders and public health officials to start educating themselves and others on what science and research shows about the effects of pot use on mental health and social welfare.

“We’re on a freight train with a policy that’s going to be very hard to turn around, and we’re up against a massive industry that sees dollar signs,” said Kevin Sabet, co-founder of Project SAM and director of the drug policy institute at the University of Florida, speaking to about 50 people at the Mystic Marriott. “Right now, we’re losing the public relations battle to the industry. We need to build a better movement.”

Currently, he said, only about 9 percent of the population uses pot regularly, yet up to half of all Americans have “bought into the idea” that legalization would be beneficial, undercutting drug cartels and providing a new source of revenue for states. Neither has proved true in states where it already is legal, he said.

Big business interests including major tobacco companies, he said, are behind the efforts to legalize pot in Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, Arizona and California, following successes in Colorado and Washington four years ago. His group, which he said is focused on applying science and research to a debate often skewed by anecdotes and outdated personal experience, released a report last month examining the effects of legalization for those over the age of 21 in Colorado and Washington, showing increases in traffic fatalities involving drivers using marijuana, and higher rates of daily use among teenagers — whose brains are still developing and susceptible to long-term damage — among many other findings.

Legalization advocates, he said, have set up a “false dichotomy” to support their case, arguing that this is a choice between incarcerating marijuana users or allowing pot use.

“There was a time in the '60s that if you had long hair and looked different and smelled like a skunk, they’d put you in jail for possession of marijuana, but that’s no longer the case. I have yet to meet someone put in jail whose only crime was possession of marijuana,” he said, getting nods from several police officers asked whether they agreed.

While legalization advocates often characterize marijuana as benign or at least less harmful than other drugs, he said, it causes diminished IQ, loss of motivation and increasing correlation with psychosis and other mental illnesses, research shows. Its effects may be “more subtle” and not immediately life-threatening as with heroin, but is a “slow kill” that is the gateway for many who become addicted to more potent drugs, he said.

“What I care about is the daily or near-daily user,” he said. “How we think we’re going to be competitive with India and China if we’re promoting a drug that saps your motivation is something I don’t understand. I call it the drop-out drug. Do we really want to make it more normalized, accessible and cheap?”

John Davian, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Prevention Professionals, said his group is the Connecticut affiliate of Project SAM, and part of the Stop Pot CT coalition.

“We’re absolutely very worried about the Massachusetts vote,” he said. If it passes there, he said, Connecticut will be faced with increasing pressure to legalize it, too, as well as an influx of pot coming into the state that will put added burdens on local police, he said.

“We had legalization bills in the legislature in the last two years that didn’t go anywhere, but we’ve got marijuana lobbyists in Hartford talking to our legislators now,” he told the group. “I urge you to talk to your legislators about this. Debunking the myths is really important.”

Groups sponsoring the talk included Ledge Light Health District and Lawrence + Memorial Hospital. Stephen Mansfield, director of Ledge Light, said Sabet's message will inform the agency's work on drug-abuse prevention.

"Ledge Light Health District is supportive of evidence-based approaches to substance abuse, and Dr. Sabet makes a compelling case against the legalization of marijuana," he said.

In his presentation, Sabet said he is not opposed to medical marijuana but believes decisions about it should be based on science and research rather than the outcome of a ballot question. He also noted that the therapeutic component of most medical marijuana products is cannabidiol, not the tetrahydrocannabinol that delivers the “high” in recreational use.

Today’s recreational marijuana products, he said, are far different from the low-potency joints many in the baby boom generation smoked. Today, marijuana is usually delivered in oil capsules, edible candies and baked goods or in wax-like substances that can be up to 98 percent THC. Marketing of marijuana products, he said, already is being directed at youths, because “you have to hook a brain while it’s developing” and the goal is to create addicts.

“This is not about the war on drugs. This is not about social justice,” he said. “This is about money. If you’re in the alcohol industry, you need alcoholics to make money, because just 10 percent of the population accounts for 75 percent of the alcohol consumption.”

In Washington and Colorado, he said, five main problems have emerged with legalization:

• Sales and marketing of “kid friendly” marijuana products.

• Aggressive marketing of marijuana products, including sample giveaways.

• Contamination of products with banned pesticides and other poisons.

• High potency of marijuana products.

• Strong pushback from industry resisting regulations, including the addition of warning labels, dosing instructions and bans on marketing to children.

“I don’t believe we should criminalize marijuana, but I do think we need an education and awareness campaign,” Sabet said. “Right now we have nothing, and filling that void are celebrities and websites telling kids it’s perfectly OK. I don’t understand why we’re talking about the heroin epidemic and not talking about marijuana. We need all of you to stand up and talk about this. Talk to your neighbors.”

j.benson@theday.com 

To read the latest report from Project SAM, "Lessons Learned After 4 Years of Marijuana Legalization," visit www.learnaboutsam.org.