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Recreational marijuana use remains illegal in Pennsylvania. How long that ban will remain in place is anyone's guess, but the decision ultimately rests with the Legislature and Governor's Office, including about whether the issue becomes a ballot question.
Meanwhile, over 65% of Maryland voters who cast ballots on Nov. 8 said "yes" to making Pennsylvania's southern neighbor a state that not only allows marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes, but also in a recreational environment.
Pennsylvania's new U.S. Sen.-elect, John Fetterman, actively sought Keystone State residents' opinions on the legalization issue during his tenure as the commonwealth's lieutenant governor. He traveled the state to gather residents' input, but neither legalization nor an outright rejection of that idea followed that effort.
The bottom line is that Fetterman's travels to gauge public sentiment failed to bring recreational marijuana to the brink of the passage and signing-into-law that he supports, because of opposition in the Legislature.
Actually, the presumed mood of the majority of Pennsylvania voters at this time, like the mood of the General Assembly, seems to favor no change in the current recreational ban, but that could change, perhaps depending on how Maryland's experience shakes out.
Still, Pennsylvania's legalization opponents might have an effective new argument on which to base continued rejection of the legalization idea and to solidify their stance. It is a study that found higher rates of conditions such as emphysema and airway inflammation among people who smoke marijuana than among nonsmokers and people who smoke tobacco only.
It needs to be acknowledged, though, that much more study will be needed before the new finding is validated or debunked.
Mirror readers might recall that this newspaper has in the past editorialized against approval of recreational marijuana. Readers need to know that the Mirror has no plan at this time to alter that stated opinion.
The study alleging bad effects of marijuana smoke was the subject of an article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.
According to the article, nearly half of the 56 marijuana smokers whose chest scans were reviewed for the study had mucus plugging their airways, a condition that was less common among the other 90 study participants who did not smoke marijuana.
That finding is contrary to public perception that marijuana is safe -- safer than tobacco, which carries with it plenty of health risks for those who use it.
Relevant to the study, which originated in Ottawa, Canada, is a statistic from the United States. The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Survey of Drug Use and Health found that about 18% of Americans reported using marijuana at least once in 2020, including about one in three young adults age 18 to 25.
"Previous studies have found that marijuana is more likely than tobacco to be smoked unfiltered and that smokers tend to inhale more smoke and hold it in their lungs longer," the article says. "Bong smoke contains tiny pollutants that can linger indoors for up to 12 hours," the article continues.
It probably will be difficult to convince supporters of marijuana legalization that they need to be concerned about what they advocate, but they at least should pay attention, going forward.
The Ottawa study makes clear that "blind" support now is not in their best interests.