Law Office of Peter A. Lee, LLC

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be making a series of posts about scams, in particular, how to recognize them before you get sucked in. Most scams have some common characteristics, but here are a few: 1 - Inconsistent identity - many scams will have multiple addresses for multiple entities, and a few minutes on the internet will show you that those addresses do not belong to the entities they claim to represent. 2 - "Pay me, so I can pay you" - many scams will insist... you need to pay them a few hundred, maybe even an thousand, dollars so they can release the massive amount of money you have one. 100% of the time, this is a scam. 3 - Typos, typos, everywhere - corporate America prides itself on its ability to present a polished public presence. Typos in the letter / e-mail you received are guaranteed to be a sign you are going to get scammed if you proceed further. I've collected some good examples of these points, and I'll share these in the coming days and weeks to help illustrate these points.

If you receive a phone call or email about how to claim your coronavirus stimulus check, hang up immediately or delete the email. It is a scam, the bill that would authorize the checks hasn't been passed by Congress yet. In any event, the IRS would contact you by mail about this payment, never by phone or email. And the IRS already has your name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number from tax returns you filed in previous years, so anyone contacting you by phone or email to "verify" the information is a scammer.

Of all the elections we have, what is the most important election you vote in? The answer might surprise you. I don’t have the book anymore (I’ve long since disposed of any law school books), but in the process of studying the legislative and electoral processes, I found many quotes from several of the Founding Fathers that supported the idea that the local elections were the most important. In a nutshell, the reasoning centered around the idea that while there will be na...tional and state issues that we vote on, the local issues in your city and county will be the ones that affect your day-to-day life. Sure, every once in a while a national issue will impact our lives, but that tends to be the exception and not the rule. In my time as an attorney, I have had one occasion where a Supreme Court decision had a direct impact in the work I do, but every day my professional and personal life are impacted by the decisions of local lawmakers. April 7 is election day for local elections. Don’t forget to get out and vote.

This article highlights some of the major concerns the public should have about marijuana legalization. First, they make good points about the research, or better put, lack of research, behind marijuana, compared to other substances. Second, the risks to teens and smoking as a method of using the drug are right on. Every jurisdiction that has legalized marijuana, for medicinal and/or recreational purposes has experienced an increase in teenage use of marijuana, and marijua...na related delinquencies as well. And of course there’s the big question mark about long term effects, largely due to lack of research, but there are links to major mental health problems, paranoid schizophrenia being at the top of the list. Other research I have seen puts the correlation between marijuana use and paranoid schizophrenia in the 90+ percentile. We will be better off as a society if we do the research first to identify how marijuana is useful, and then tailor the legislation to allow appropriate use for the issue supported by the research. Sadly, society does not have the patience or desire to do that. https://lifehacker.com/what-marijuana-actually-does-to-your

I don’t normally post about political issues, but with the number of marijuana issues on the ballots next week, I believe I need to share my two cents on the issue. I have the privilege of representing children who are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, both for delinquencies and abuse or neglect issues. From time to time, I have received a variety of reports about studies that have been done on the recreational use of marijuana, statistics from other states tha...t have already legalized marijuana, and other marijuana related news reports. Here is what I have learned: 1. 100% of the studies I have seen regarding the effect of recreational marijuana use (recreational use is generally defined as a few times a month, i.e. no more than once a week), arrive at the conclusion that over time, recreational use of marijuana rots your brain (albeit in more flowery language). 2. 0% of the studies I have seen show any positive cognitive benefits to the recreational use of marijuana. It won’t help your golf game, improve your IQ, or give you a photographic memory. 3. Every jurisdiction that has legalized the recreational use of marijuana has experienced a spike in crimes related to marijuana consumption. Teenagers use marijuana at a much higher rate in legal jurisdictions, and burglaries and theft related crimes have increased as well. 4. Finally, and most concerning, the Mexican drug cartels that until now have supplied the illegal marijuana trade in this country are beginning to increase their production of methamphetamine and heroin to offset anticipated profits lost from a drop in demand for marijuana due to the legalization of marijuana in the States. Now I know that some of you are saying, what about medical marijuana? Well, points 1, 2, and 4 hold up as I see it. Point 3 also holds up, although I believe the statistics are not as high for medical marijuana only states, versus those that have made recreational use legal. I’m not disputing that there are some medical benefits that marijuana can provide. However, given the negatives, I believe more research is needed. I haven’t seen any research (and again this is out of my field) of the medical benefits of smoking marijuana versus some other delivery method (i.e. shot, pill, etc.), but would be curious to know to what degree that has been looked at. What I do know is that whether it is medical or recreational marijuana use, the research and statistics show that it (1) is harmful to your overall health over time, and (2) results in an increase in delinquency and crime. And if the choice is the Mexican cartels producing marijuana versus meth and heroin, I think marijuana is clearly the lesser of those two evils. For these reasons, I’m voting against any measure that calls for the legalization of marijuana next week.

Pay attention.......know what your kids are doing......and who they are communicating with.