Legalizing it would not prevent the teens from getting pot.
I said "most effective way" not "100% effective way." Adult legality and regulation does a better job of keeping the drugs alcohol and tobacco away from teens than banning marijuana does in keeping that drug away from teens.
They’ve been taking from the jars on the parents’ dresser for years. The pot smoking parents are constantly heard, saying that they would prefer to have their kids driving high on marijuana than drunk on beer, as well as the remark, well it didn’t hurt me, so it won’t hurt them. It’s no big deal. It’s a mind set, that marijuana is harmless. It’s not.
I know someone who shared her home grown medical marijuana with a young man, who after leaving her house, ran over and killed a man and spent 3.5 years of his young life behind bars.
Nothing you say above distinguishes marijuana from the legal drug alcohol; do you support banning that drug for adults?
Alcohol doesn’t cause permanent loss of IQ and is not carcinogenic. Also there are clear standards for driving under the influence of alcohol that cannot be so clear for marijuana.
If marijuana is so easy to obtain for teen agers, it is even easier for adults. So, what’s the big deal? I don’t know anyone who smokes marijuana that has any trouble getting it.
I know that the Gateway drug claim is controversial, but I’ll will give you an anecdotal story about it anyway. A friend of mine, who has a very laissez faire attitude toward drugs, talked about her drug experiences openly with her kids and even allowed them to, or at least didn’t stop them, smoking marijuana and drinking beer at home, as long as they didn’t drive afterwards. Her son started using other drugs and eventually became a heroin addict. He called her one time, when he was contemplating suicide, and told her that she was the worst mother in the world because she made drugs sound so harmless and like so much fun.
As a matter of fact I know two mothers, with similar attitudes and similar results. Both of the boys were top students before the marijuana use. One of them who had been in advanced classes and a soccer star, dropped out of high school. I don’t know what happened to the other.