Thanks for the article, which I have bookmarked.
My next step is to track down the studies mentioned in the article, since the author provided no references.
I like to have a lot of data on my side, since the potheads always love to claim that nothing has been proven—well, you know the litany they use to imply that marijuana is a perfectly harmless form of recreation. Whenever I point out that we, as a society, are in the process of discovering why marijuana was made illegal in the first place, they always try to claim some conspiracy is responsible. And so on, they have a lot of talking points spread by NORML, which take a lot of time and effort to refute. So this article will help.
For what it’s worth, the reason there are no references is that it’s the transcript from a speech, not a scholarly article.
Here’s the book.
I almost never hear anyone claim that it’s a harmless form of recreation. I think anyone who has used it for any length of time recognizes that there are costs, some of them serious for some people.
What I do hear is people saying that the extreme methods of enforcement of marijuana laws that have been in place cause worse societal problems than the marijuana does. That’s a harder question to answer than “Are drugs good, or are they bad?” If you have to choose one, the answer is definitely “bad”. But if you look at putting someone in jail for 20 years for simple possession, that is worse.