Posted on 03/12/2013 6:54:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Denver television station CBS4 reports that Colorado has seen a sharp spike in marijuana use among teenagers since voters passed Amendment 64 last November, legalizing recreational use of the drug. As described in The Economist, along with a Washington State measure also legalizing marijuana, Amendment 64 is “an electoral first not only for America but for the world.”
That means two American states are to the left of the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and every other liberal country regarding marijuana.
CBS4 quotes a number of local high-school students:
“I’ve seen a lot more people just walking down the street smoking (joints),” high-school student Irie Johnson said.
“In high school it has kind of gotten out of hand,” student Alaina Tanenbaum said.
According to the CBS4 report, based in part on data from a local drug-testing lab: “Experts say the test results show that children are getting higher than ever with alarming levels of THC, marijuana’s active ingredient, in their bodies.”
The massive increase in both the number of users and the amount of marijuana used by young people is precisely what I and many others predicted.
It was easy to foresee.
When something desirable is made easier to obtain, more people will obtain it. It is difficult to imagine an exception to this commonsense observation.
So legalizing marijuana is foolish because it leads to far more use of the drug and the availability of ever more potent forms. But the foolishness doesn’t end there. Equally foolish is that as a society we have made peace with marijuana while making war on tobacco. This has been a classic example of upside-down thinking; and we are reaping exactly what we have sown. We have produced a generation of young Americans who would never put a cigarette or cigar near their lips, but who increasingly get high on pot.
Yes, tobacco — specifically cigarettes — kills and marijuana doesn’t. But, if you’ll forgive the ultimate political incorrectness, young people would do much better in life if they smoked tobacco rather than weed.
First, tobacco doesn’t kill young people. When it kills, it generally kills much older adult people. Moreover, according to a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, if you stop smoking cigarettes by age 44, you will lose only one more year of life than a person who has never smoked.
Second, regular pot smokers increasingly tune out of life, becoming what are known as potheads, or, to put it bluntly, losers.
Third, as noted in the CBS4 report, “new studies that have been published say the risk of a car accident increases two-fold after someone consumes pot.” In other words, innocent human beings — sometimes whole families — are more likely to be maimed, paralyzed, and killed by pot smokers than by cigarette smokers.
For myriad reasons, then, I would far prefer my teenager indulge in cigarettes — not to mention cigars — than pot. Anyone who thinks that pot is less harmful to a teenager than tobacco is fooling himself — and his teenager.
If this is not obvious, ponder these questions: Would you rather your airplane pilot smoke pot or tobacco while flying? How would Britain have fared in World War II if Winston Churchill had smoked pot instead of cigars?
In terms of the effects of tobacco and pot on the smoker while smoking, there is simply no comparison between pot and tobacco.
What the Left has done to America’s youth in the last 40 or so years is so damaging as to be unforgiveable. They have ruined public-school education; left them with so much debt that they will likely be the first American generation to live in a fashion materially inferior to that of their parents; and robbed their innocence with sex-education classes, now beginning in kindergarten in Chicago and elsewhere. Now they are making marijuana available to more kids and in greater potency than ever before.
But they have left them with higher self-esteem.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist.
Heck, I was queasy enough over the questionable morality of state governments utilizing lotteries for revenue. To have a government actually fund itself via dope-peddling is such a degenerate slide that I’d find it difficult to personally grant such a government any legitimacy whatsoever.
I agree. I am glad they were arrested. I have read some comments here also about pot being harmless or no big deal, Well, I damn near got shot with birdshot as I went dove hunting with a man I had no idea smoked the crap. He started acting funny and shot a damn butterfly four feet from my head. The SOB was so stoned he claimed he thought the butterfly was a dove. I left him there.
LOL Yeah that’s a win allright.
Great Question for in the old testament they were to abstain from strong drink for it was knows in Proverbs as a "Mocker". That is, that it would turn upon it's user just like modern drugs do today.
It also said that it was to be used wisely for those who were dying or shortly to die in pain. Thus the effects of the Mocking (and its turning on the user) would be subsumed in close death.
Modern Man, today, says he will not be mocked by the use (of whatever), that he/she/or it, can "handle it". And one should think of it like handling a cobra. It is believed that one can "handle" the snake and charm it, it will never bite. Yet, they who do - often get bitten.
Why? They take their eyes off it. They do not observe the effects of having the snake in their midst (upon their friends and families).
And sometimes, the first bites are small and you don't feel the next bite as bad (yet its outcome often is). The mistermeanor of disorderly conduct leads to X, which leads to Y which leads some to Murder, etc.
No-one ever thinks of all the possibilities of what could go wrong (and Murphy) and that it could NEVER HAPPEN TO THEM and their could NEVER BE ANY EFFECTS ON THEIR FAMILIES OR THEIR CHILDREN.
They do not see the sins of the fathers being propagated to their children for generations. They do not see the impoverishment they will pass on.
Few will find the Narrow little road that leads to Life and some will call upon the Lord to be delivered from such death and for some He will. But many will go the broad road and find out.
The only way I would try heroin is if I were terminal.
I have seen many overdoses,and performed CPR on them. They use the drug Narcan to wake these people up, when they wake up they are mad because it spoiled their high. I have heard people on the scene say ,”man that must have been some good shYt to take Leroy down like that”. Wish I knew where I could get some.
I ahve always said they should use it for executions.
There can’t be anything cruel about it when those who have overdosed just go looking for more.
Alcohol was prohibited but easily gotten.
Most people who wanted a drink could get it any time they wanted it. A few went blind from bad booze, Not like the hundreds who die from heroin overdoses.
I doubt it spiked much because they could get all they wanted during prohibition.It never really stopped. The only thing that stopped was the Government tax on it.
Great Question,
Thank you! Now, is it "yes" or "no" to each of the above yes/no questions?
And of course try to justify recreational drug use either way, I'm sure. And promoting drugs to the younger generation in the process. No thank you.
The vital difference there is that abortion by definition involves another person's body.
The dope users are not interested in freedom but their own habits and when people are murdered to feed their habit they couldn’t care less. Both sides of the equation have blood on their hands...seller and buyer...
You forgot the side that supports the anti-marijuana laws that restrict the market to criminals and hyperinflate the profits and the consequent incentives to murder. If you really cared about the blood, you'd support legalization - the alcohol trade stopped involving murder when that mind-altering drug was legalized.
The government isn't selling the pot. If you're referring to the tax revenues, how do you feel about the revenues from the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol?
Was it any different before 1913, when the federal government was funded largely though liquor taxes?
Here's the actual report: http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/03/06/drug-testing-company-sees-spike-in-children-using-marijuana/.
based in part on data from a local drug-testing lab:
The rest being based on student anecdotes.
“Experts say the test results show that children are getting higher than ever with alarming levels of THC, marijuana’s active ingredient, in their bodies.”
The report makes clear that the testing regimen has changed in a number of ways - so there's no valid way to make a before-and-after comparison.
When something desirable is made easier to obtain, more people will obtain it.
Drug Warrior, thy name is ignorance. The amendment kept pot illegal for minors - and even if the enabling legislation has been passed (last I heard it hasn't) there simply hasn't been time for growers and distributors to get licensed and gear up. These kids probably are smoking more openly because they're as ignorant as this Drug Warrior - but they have a better excuse for their ignorance.
The fact about legalization and youth availability is this: Teens report nationwide that they can get the illegal-for-adults drug pot more easily than legal-for-adults beer or cigarettes; the evidence is that the most effective way to keep pot out of teens' hands is to legalize it for adults - so sellers have an incentive not to sell to kids (namely, the loss of their legal adult sales).
I’d be interested to know how you know that song “...probably persuaded more marijuana users to stop smoking marijuana than every anti-drug ad ever created by the government. “
Just stop already!
Your relentless stream of reason and evidence is annoying as h*ll.
You seem to be under the impression that those who support the Government’s campaign were reasoned into that support, rather than simply adopting it through social peer pressure.
After all, who among them would dare to think differently than the mainstream?
So all of this sweet reasoning is a waste of time and space - that’s pretty bad, right?
Just kidding, keep up the good fight, but get used to being on the losing side of history, at least for now.
“I saw a study that found that the smoke from 1 joint equaled the cancer producing of 20 cigarettes.”
LOL!! I have a very good idea where you found that study, and it wasn’t on a library shelf!
Not by the abortionist definition.
The same people involved in marijuana trade are involved in heroine, cocaine, meth and transporting illegal immigrants into the U.S.
They are predicate criminals who will engage in crime no matter.
Legalization of alcohol hasn't taken the profit out of alcohol nor will legalization take the profit out of drugs, it will just change the distribution of the money.
Not by the abortionist definition.
What are you, a relativist? They're wrong - and by no sane definition does Woody's inhalation of smoke affect any body other than Woody's.
The same people involved in marijuana trade are involved in heroine, cocaine, meth and transporting illegal immigrants into the U.S. They are predicate criminals who will engage in crime no matter.
But under legalization they'll bring in far less money for their criminal activities:
”The lush traffic in alcohol beverages during the violent years of 1920 to 1933 had laid the base of organization for a number of criminal gangs. The termination of the ban on liquor deprived these gangs of their most lucrative source of money” - Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce
Legalization of alcohol hasn't taken the profit out of alcohol nor will legalization take the profit out of drugs, it will just change the distribution of the money.
Even if the total profits don't drop - and basic economics says they will - moving money out of Al Capone's hands to Adolph Coors' was a clear win.
Thanks! Will do.
but get used to being on the losing side of history, at least for now.
The tide continues to turn.
“What are you, a relativist? They’re wrong - and by no sane definition does Woody’s inhalation of smoke affect any body other than Woody’s”
That may be Woody’s opinion if he wants to justify drug use and if Woody sat on a mountain top alone he might be right but not otherwise.
“What are you, a relativist? They’re wrong”
Sure they’re wrong just as the legalize drugs crowd is wrong for thinking they can equate drug use and the harm it does with personal freedom.
By the way Capone went to jail for tax evasion not bootlegging.
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