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.
how nobody is telling anyone what they can put into their own bodies?
Except for the amount of soda:-)
I love Prager, but I’d say his logic is flawed here. Unless you believe government should rule over adults in some ersatz parental manner and govern as if the sum total of all citizens were the equivalent of adolescents, how could this argument hold water?
those nasty freedomses ... we hates ‘em
http://www.shortercatechism.com/resources/wsc/wsc_007.html
Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 7
Q: What are the decrees of God?
A: The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.
God foreordained it and since immorality is rampant again what has He in store next for this world?
Sounds like my high school. I swear Cheech and Chong were doing all of their research there. Wish I could bring those kids here and show them all of the marginally employed fifty-something dishwashers and cab drivers I know as a result.
Duh! That’s precisely what this is about; that and crippling whatever might be left of the middle class; they’ll simply drop out altogether.
Reminds me of how the Soviets made sure everyone had access to Vodka as to drink the misery away. (No, I am not for banning booze.)
should the Govt not tell anyone what they should put in their body, ?
I think that is what you;re saying and that the authors logic is flawed and thus you probably disagree with him so if that is your view then should the Govt just get out of the drug business and just let anyone take heroin, coke, LSD?
After all the liberties taken away , liberals, and Govt out of our bodies is what I hear about killing babies, off junkies so they can take their drugs and get high.
If you say yes then should we also let anyone marry anyone, let kids take the drugs and have sex or of you d want an age limit for sex and drugs then should Govt decide on that or is it a free for all country and anarchy ?
One of the reasons Khrushchev was removed was because of the disastrous wheat harvests that led to a shortage in Vodka.
actually I am happy Seek posted this as some might not have seen this or not really had a say on it.
From Steve Martin on SNL:
I mentioned that, earlier in the show, a drug joke - and I hate to do that, because it creates a mess, and I’m not into drugs any more. I quit completely, and I hate people who are still into it. Well.. I do take one drug now - for fun - and, maybe you’ve heard of it, it’s a new thing, I don’t know if you have or not. It’s a new thing, it makes you small. [ indicates size with fingers ] About this big. And, you know, I’ll be home, sitting with my friends, and, uh.. we’ll be sitting around, and somebody will say, “Heeeyyy.. let’s get small!” So, you know, we get small, and uh.. the only bad thing is if some tall people come over. You’re walking around going, “Ah hahaha..!” Now, I know I shouldn’t get small when I’m driving.. but I was driving around the other day, and I said, “What the heck?” You know? So I’m driving like.. [ extends arms high in the air like he’s reaching up to a giant steering wheel ] And, uh.. a cop pulls me over. And he makes me get out, he looks at me and he says, “Heyyy.. are you small”? I said, “No-o-o! I’m not!” He said, “Well, I’m gonna have to measure you.” They have this little test they give you - they give you a balloon.. and if you can get inside of it, they know you’re small. Now, I’ve already talked it over with the cast - they’ve been working all week, it’s a tough thing to do, come out here live. Immediately after the show, we’re all gonna go out.. and get really small!
Well... if this is supposed to be a serious debate on the Issue, his only claim of 'bad consequences' is that pot smokers don't smoke cigarettes.
Hence... satire.
tell the druggies that they have a right to take their drugs and get high, then get their votes and without even knowing it the junkies and dope smokers rely on one party to protect their getting high so called right.
Meanwhile the 2nd amendment is being stripped or looking to be stripped and I guarantee that some of those junkies which take their drugs and want it legal whilst crying that it;s their liberties being taken away and Govt shouldn;t tell me what to put in my body would have also voted for the party which wants to ban guns but give them drugs.
Historically, that almost never happens.
not with the left handing out so called rights to homosexuals, cross dressers, turd munchers, druggies and if we ever got common sense then these people will think that their rights , so called rights have been stripped
I’m not sure I’d go that far at all.
I will admit that I do not understand the demonization of tobacco smoking vs the acceptance of marijuana smoking.
If you can’t stand second hand tobacco smoke, how is second hand mj smoke going to be any better?
I’m waiting for the first claims of failed drug tests from second hand mj smoke.
Smoke is bad for your lungs, period. Tobacco, campfire, house fire, or marijuana.
We have spent years and billions on anti-smoking campaigns.
I think with the legalization of marijuana, you will also see an uptick in cigarette smoking. Kids will just see it all as smoking.
Heck, that’s the way I see it, except one gets you high and loses you your job.
...uh.... you really need to get a handle on this 'typing' thing. One could misconstrue that sentence all too easily.
I was just about to say, with the war on soda and junk food, it is almost a cruelty to legitimize something that makes you crave soda and junk food...
Quite a conumdrum; I can legally inflict cottonmouth and the munchies on myself, but then it is illegal to answer the call of the cannibinols. That’s just mean.
Well... every QUICK TRIP has liquor.
my point taking drugs
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