An increasing percentage of Americans support the legalization of marijuana even though medical research is raising even greater concerns. Bill Bennett and Robert White wrote in a recent column that this is indeed an irony. Public opinion is going in one direction and scientific and medical research is going in the opposite direction.

One example they use in their column is a study that just appeared in the journal Current Addiction Reports. The study found that regular pot use (defined as once a week) among teenagers and young adults led to cognitive decline, poor attention and memory, and decreased IQ. They go on to point out that since few marijuana users limit themselves to use once a week, the actual harm is much worse for developing brains.

The American Psychological Association noted that young people who become addicted to marijuana lose an average of six IQ points by adulthood. Other studies pegged the IQ loss even higher.

In the midst of all these new studies demonstrating the dangers of marijuana use are the increasing numbers of Americans who support marijuana legalization. One poll has the percentage as high as 55 percent. In another poll, Americans were asked to rank the harms of various substances. Americans ranked sugar as more harmful than marijuana.

Bennett and White try to inject some reality into this discussion. “The marijuana of today is simply not the same drug it was in the 1960s, ’70s, or ’80s, much less the 1930s. It is often at least five times stronger, with the levels of the psychoactive ingredient THC, averaging about 15% in the marijuana at dispensaries found in the states that have legalized pot for medicinal or, in the case of Colorado, recreational use.”

Supporters of marijuana legalization say they are the progressives. In reality, they are stuck in the past. We now know more about the dangers of marijuana, and that is why we should not be making pot even more available.