Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rustin, president of NC Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy DeVett Griggs. Welcome to Family Policy Matters.
Aubrey Adams is a mother who has experienced the impact of marijuana legalization firsthand. While living in Colorado when POT was legalized there, she watched the impact on her son. At first, dismissing his behavior as adolescent growing pains, she soon had no choice but to confront the truth about the modern Version of cannabis and marijuana. Years later, she is now the director of Every Brain Matters. While marijuana is still illegal in North Carolina, there are big money attempts every year to wholesale legalize it.
And Governor Stein has created a task force to study whether our state should indeed legalize marijuana. Aubrey Adams, thanks for joining us today on Family Policy Matters. Thanks for having me. All right.
So you were living in Colorado when marijuana was first legalized. Tell us the story about your son and why that compelled you to get involved as you did.
Well, when Colorado legalized marijuana or commercialized it, I didn't think it was a great idea, but I didn't think it would affect my family or my community. We weren't interested in using drugs.
So I thought, well, I guess if some people are going to do it, they're going to do it. But I didn't realize the storm that would come to my family. My son's behavior started changing, and then he had some irrational behavior. Repeating things that didn't make sense, very paranoid and delusional. And then he had a really bad suicide attempt.
He was hospitalized twice in a psychiatric unit with just a few weeks. And when he got out of the hospital for the second time, he told me he was using DABs and he knew they were making him feel crazy and he was trying to quit. And I had no clue what a DAB was. And he explained to me that DABs were strong marijuana and he called them crack weed.
So I started researching what DABs were, and I learned that they are high concentrations of THC, the addictive chemical in the marijuana plant, and that our community was mass producing these high-concentrated products and calling them medicine.
So I got mad and realized that the behavior changes I was seeing in my son were the result of his marijuana use. And that took us on a path of being in crisis for over two years. He was in and out of psychosis. And at the time, I didn't even know that marijuana could cause psychosis. And psychosis is when a person has paranoia, delusions, hallucinations.
And when I witnessed my son having cannabis-induced psychosis, it changed him forever and it changed me forever.
Now, this psychosis that you noticed in your son, is this something that's temporary while the marijuana is being used, or is this something he's struggling with even today? It's a long story, and unfortunately, we still struggle today.
So, 47% of people who experience psychosis induced by cannabis will not come out of it. They will convert to chronic psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia or bipolar with psychotic features. When my son quits using marijuana, he does stabilize.
So, we are one of the lucky ones. But, what I learned in time, if they keep going into psychosis from their marijuana use, their brain doesn't always bounce back. I think a lot of people don't realize that, that a lot of these illegal drugs will actually rewire your brain.
So, you know, temporary use is not necessarily harmless. And speaking of harmless, you mentioned that at first you weren't that concerned about the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, but is that because you still viewed it in the way that of the old marijuana? Because this is certainly not your mama's and your grandmother's marijuana anymore. I had seen marijuana harm. People growing up.
I had experienced a really bad reaction to marijuana when I was a teenager and thought I'll never touch that again. I learned my lesson right away. But I didn't realize that Colorado really changed in the marijuana products and they highly concentrated them.
So the negative effects of marijuana were coming on harder and stronger. And I started reading the research and I read a study that showed me that people have a better chance of recovery from a meth-induced psychosis than a cannabis-induced psychosis. And that really woke me up to the seriousness of the situation we were living in, and that I really needed to get focused on his environment where he could heal and wasn't being pressured all the time to use. And that just put us down a pathway of me moving to a different state to find help. I lost all my equity paying for his treatment.
I became a single mom. I joined a dynamic recovery community in Texas and became a host mom for Youth in Recovery.
So I became this parent that just absorbed information because I just wanted to do everything I could to get. my son a chance to live a healthy life. But I can tell you that, you know, addiction embedded in his brain as a teenager and he still struggles today.
So talk about this organization that you created, Every Brain Matters. What are the goals and are you achieving those in any way? Do you feel like? I feel like we are. Yes.
Every Brain Matters was founded by another nonprofit called Parents Opposed to Pot, and I developed it.
So I wanted other families to come forward and start advocating like I was. I started speaking out against the legalization, commercialization of marijuana. And I really wanted the other families to be harmed to join me in that. But I realized that they were living in crisis and they needed support first.
So I wanted to teach them everything I learned as a host mom for youth and recovery. And so I started having online support groups with the counselor that counseled my family. And we started engaging in this positive peer support for families, for parents, so that they Could learn, you know, the tools and techniques to how to walk through this with their loved ones and survive it too.
So, Every Brain Matters was developed and formed out of that passion that I developed. And we are nationally recognized, and we provide these online recovery support meetings for families for free. And we are growing every day. Unfortunately, we're growing every day. More families are being harmed.
But we just found out yesterday that Every Brain Matters and Maranon are featured in the 2026 ONDCP, the White House Office of National Control Policy Strategy. And our memorial is featured in there of people that have died from the effects of marijuana.
So, to me, it's such a great honor knowing that this work I've been doing all these years is getting recognized, and the families that have lost their loved ones are breaking the stigma because so many people come at us and say, Nobody. Ever dies in marijuana.
Well, I have a whole page on my website dedicated to these families. And I have so many people in the queue waiting to send me their statements and the photos of their loved ones that they want me to honor on my website. Right. In this website, Everybrain Matters, is that as simple as just going and Googling that and it'll take us right there? Yes, everybrainmatters.org.
I encourage everyone to sign up for my monthly newsletter. I won't bombard you with emails, but that monthly newsletter really keeps you up to date and gives you the tools to provide valuable education to your communities, your families, and really combat this narrative that marijuana legalization is some kind of solution to our drug crisis, which it's not. Right. Let's talk a little bit about what it was like, because here at the North Carolina Family Policy Council, we love people like you, you know, moms and citizens who just are confronted with an issue and they just go. They don't wait for another organization to take up the banner, but.
They just create it. And so thank you for doing that. It takes a lot of courage, but I would imagine it also draws some opposition. What was it like when you first started speaking out? Because there's some big money behind the legalization of marijuana.
Were you getting opposition at all? Yes, I get a lot of opposition and it's really unfortunate. The pro-marijuana side really doesn't understand that, you know, we get a voice too, that we are allowed to educate and empower people and provide informed consent if people are going to use marijuana so they understand the potential risks that they are can lead to consuming their products. It can get pretty scary at times. I was very active in the state of Texas and we were combating the hemp industry with their THC products.
And one of the hemp industry owners actually hired a private investigator and found my son and my husband, because my husband, unfortunately, has been harmed by marijuana too. And this private investigator called him up and offered him money. And said, hey, your mom talks really bad about THC. We want to hear your side of the story and we'll go ahead and pay you. And my son's response to this man was, leave my mom alone.
I support what she does. And all you need to know is that THC physically and mentally injured me. And so I thought maybe that industry owner and that private investigator would publicly say, hey, we talked to Aubrey's son and this is what he said, but they never did. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I do think this is another misconception that people have is that these are just like small pot growers when really we have corporations that are pushing for this. And so it can get pretty scary, I'm sure, for you, but thank you for your courage. Do you think that Colorado and other early adopters, as you've just mentioned, understand the price that they're paying? Because the statistics are overwhelming. They do.
I can tell you, you know, I think what I want to emphasize to your viewers is I'm from your future.
So here in Pueblo, Colorado, where I live, the marijuana industry is going out of business. They sell horrible products that damage many lives and they've left this big path of destruction here. And the buzz, the most people here that I speak to say it's the worst thing we ever did and they want to reverse it.
So I hope that North Carolina prevents this from coming to their state because there's going to come a time as if they allow legalization in their state, they're going to destroy a lot of lives and then they're going to be picking up the pieces for years.
So when I first asked you about legalizing marijuana, you said, well, legalizing or commercializing. You mentioned sort of a slightly different spin, I guess, on that action. Talk about that. Why is there a distinction even needed between legalization and commercialization?
Well, I think it's one of the industry's deceptive talking points. They just say, we just need to legalize to keep people out of jail. And of course, people don't want other people to go to jail for smoking a joint. But when you legalize marijuana, you industrialize, you commercialize a whole industry, a predatory addiction for Profit industry that sets up shops in your neighborhoods and has these deceptive, predatory marketing tactics.
So they put THC in all kinds of different normal-looking foods.
So people, kids, adults can use these products in schools, at workplaces, in public places, and even in your own homes where you wouldn't even know your kid is using marijuana. It doesn't even smell like it. It doesn't even taste like marijuana.
So that's very deceptive and very predatory.
So that's what you're voting for. You're voting for an industry to come in and cause more addiction and mental illness so a few people can profit while the taxpayers pay the price and the families pay the ultimate price. You've just given some great advice, I think, for lawmakers who might be listening to this interview. But what else? Are there any specifics about ways that they can fend off some of the pressure that they are feeling from this industry?
Yes. I mean, you know, one of the main points. The marijuana industry says, well, we've got to legalize because we card people and we're only going to sell to 21 and older.
Well, the most highly regulated two drugs we have are alcohol and tobacco. And those are the drugs that are most accessible to youth and most used by youth.
So if North Carolina legislators want their youth to use marijuana, a great way to do that is to legalize now. If it's legal, people think it's ethical, people think it's good for you. Aubrey Adams, director of Every Brain Matters. Tell us once again where people can go to connect with your organization and the kinds of resources that you provide there. Nonprofit Every Brain Matters, you can search us on the internet.
It's everybrainmatters.org. We provide critical, valuable education on today's potent modern marijuana to empower you and protect your brains. We provide compassionate family recovery resources for free. We provide a professional counselor to talk with your families, and we have support groups. We have peer support for the families and the parents there.
And then we advocate for policies that prevent drug use and support recovery pathways. It's really important that people understand the three different types of drug policies, and that's what we explain well: the prevention, the promotion, or the recovery. If you're going to legalize marijuana, that means you're going to promote addiction and mental illness, and the families and the taxpayers pay the price. All right.
Well, Aubrey Adams, director again of Every Brain Matters. Thank you so much for all you do and for your courage to do it. And thanks for joining us today on Family Policy Matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review.
To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family. Um
