Didn’t you see more lost to alcohol?
Not really. Pot changed personalities and mental acuteness. Alcohol was a weekend drunk but Ok afterwards. I know of a few alcoholics over t, he yearsbut none personally. I lost a cousin who started with pot in high school and graduated to harder stuff later in life and was an OD. There is an epidemic of hard drug users in our community now and all of whom I am aware started on pot. In my morning coffee group of old guys we often talk on he subject. Some of their family are involved. I guess the change in life style among pot users is something we all recognize.
The reason alcohol is such a huge problem is because of “accessibility”. It is available everywhere - stores, bars, liquor cabinets at home and the refrigerator.
I’m not advocating prohibition, just the fact that alcohol is the major problem it is simply because it is legal for adults and accessible to teenagers.
Legalizing pot will create and add to the abuse problem because it will be far more accessible one day, just like alcohol. The stigma of buying an illegal substance will be gone. It will be in the home - far more homes than when it was illegal. Sure, people were buying when illegal, but once legal - it will be far more within reach of kids and people who wouldn’t have tried it when it was illegal. It’s just a fact.
So, legalizing it, or any other drug, only creates more abuse problems. The question is, is legal access to it worth the societal damage it will create? I guess we’re going to find out.