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.
Yes, it’s common for adults in the US to pay for their kids education.
You still didn't answer his question. Did YOU pay for your childrens’ education?
Wrong as usual. Your claim, in post #149: "One hit and your mind is in a different place."
No
You still didn't answer his question. Did YOU pay for your childrens’ education?
No
Who should make the decision at what age one can legally smoke pot?
Us, through our elected representatives, as we've done for alcohol.
How many teenagers regularly get drunk and abuse other illegal substances on a regular basis? What makes you think they would have the common sense not to try it at one of their parties if it could be purchased legally? And lets add cocaine to the mix too...........
The potential for addiction to cocaine, crack or heroin is immediate upon first use unlike tobacco or your first beer which neither one was pleasant and required repeated use before you finally tolerated it.
The first and only time I tried coke, the high was immediate, the feeling was great and there was no foul taste in my mouth or a next morning hangover.......I had the common sense never to try it again. But then again I wasn't a teenager out to get high on weekends........
How many teenagers regularly get drunk and abuse other illegal substances on a regular basis?
Are you a teenager?
What makes you think they would have the common sense not to try it at one of their parties if it could be purchased legally?
Nobody advocates legalization for teenagers. 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).
You weren't making a simple point. You were making a hyperbolic point intended to distract the small-minded among us, and hopefully, encourage them to adopt your retarded stance on the subject. I called you out on it.
The fact that a pot fan can out-conservative you on this issue should scare the living hell out of you . . . that is, if you're on the side of non-statists. If you're a statist, well, you can go eff yourself.
I was one once......so I think I can speak from experience.
You're kidding me right?.....Where do you think underage teenagers get their booze from????????
I started drinking at the age of 17, in the summer of 1968 after I graduated from high school. NONE OF US were of legal age to purchase alcohol and had to rely on several 21 year old "ADULTS" who could....
And as a side note, one such buyer kept our frickin money and never brought us the beer..........
You’re living proof of pot smoking changing one’s brain chemistry.
You're kidding me right?.....Where do you think underage teenagers get their booze from????????
Which part of "most" did you not understand? No known approach is 100% effective - but the evidence is that legalization for adults works better.
Based on the available evidence, I'd rather have his brain chemistry than yours any day of the week.
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