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Those minor crimes as you call them are very often the basis or at least the starting point for other more serious crimes.

This isn't a hard concept. Drugs are easy to get, to be sure, but addicts find it hard to keep a job and find enough money to live and buy drugs.

Thefts, starting small and increasing into things like burglary, robbery, car theft, stealing money from family. Murder for drug deals gone bad. Physical and mental challenges due to drug use, with increases the homeless factor, the crime factor and the serious and often fatal, sometimes contagious diseases and conditions.

I could go on and on. You see, my very own brother has f***** up his life because of simple "recreational marijuana" use.

I have two cousins who used to be wonderful young men who are now homeless living under an overpass, who started with marijuana and alcohol. Neither of them are capable of recognizing family members anymore.

One killed a woman on her wedding day because he was driving under the influence of that "harmless" marijuana. He didn't even realize it, as he dragged her halfway down the street under his car. She unrecognizable, even to her fiance, when my cousin finally stopped because someone put a car in the street to block him.

My young uncle was 17 and I was 15 when molested me during a family campground while under the influence of marijuana. He was so mildly stoned, no one knew he was stoned. Yet every member of his family and mine was present. He asked me to take a hike with him, which was not uncommon. We had been more like brother and sister because of our ages.

I never told anyone, because I was ashamed. This uncle is now still using drugs and is also an alcoholic. He's now 48.

I can tell you about about classmates who are in jail or dead because of simple little drugs like marijuana.

Drugs lead to more serious crimes, so it is helping to take care of crime at the root.

Put down the virtual crack pipe and think about this. Most crimes also involve drugs. This is not a coincidence.