Marijuana: A Gift of the Left to America’s Youth: CO and WA already having bad consequences

National Review ^ | 03/12/2013 | Dennis Prager

[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.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

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).

since we already have alcohol and it's documented effects on the destruction of lives via vehicle homicides, spouse abuse, child abuse, murders, rapes, etc.......

I'd love to see the alleged documentation that alcohol causes murder and rape. The murder rate dropped when Prohibition ended.

Why do you find it necessary to add additional mind altering drugs to the mix and make them legal?

Because, as we discovered with Prohibition, making drugs illegal is even worse: it hyperinflates drug profits and channels those profits into criminal hands, and removes the drug(s) from any possibility of effective regulation such as age limits. Not to mention the the violence it does to the principle of individual liberty.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Dope dealers are harder to find than a "buyer" and a local party store..........

Your claim is contradicted by the evidence: 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).

[count-your-change]

If it’s “Buh-bye.” then go, no one’s stopping you.

[bramps]

WVKayaker, he’s high, he’s a pastor, he’s on the road, behind the wheel and proud of it!...and designing the world’s most magnificent homes at the same time. Are you the guy in the ‘Dos Equis’ commercials? “I don’t smoke pot all the time, but when I do it’s, it’s, it’s...what was the question again?”

“Under the influence of self”. You’re stoned right now aren’t you?

Ever drive while high with children in the car?

[WVKayaker]

WVKayaker, he’s high, he’s a pastor, he’s on the road, ...

Bramps, he's full of himself! He's judgmental, and can't stand the facts when they don't line up with his pre-conceived notions. I don't drink beer! I do enjoy a good Irish or single-malt Scotch with my cigars!

I haven't been "stoned' in a long, long time... and already so stated those FACTS! You know about opinions, don't you . they are just like a-holes. Everybody has one. Yours is shining bright!

But, facts have been presented that you seem to wish to ignore. You just don't know enough to present an actual argument, so all I get from you is YOUR opinion and snarky catcalls. I am proud of my record. There are some things I would probably change, but my history of smoking marijuana is not one of them. It is just part of my history, and for me, had more of a medicinal and mind-expanding effect. !

When was the last time you rented a skybox in New Orleans? Here I am in mine. I wasn't stoned, but the ability to rent that box was a result of those times that I was...

How many houses have you built as a General Contractor? Here are three of mine (Woodberry Forest Subd., Wilmington, NC), but I have built well over 500, and had smoked whenever I wished!

Do you enjoy a cushy life, wherever you are. I do, but I am spending my time and $$$ on others, on the other side of the world from family and friends. I still don't smoke the stuff, but would if under the right conditions. I would not smoke it in front of you, nor would I do so in front of anyone else who may stumble. Some people are just too weak to handle freedom.

So, how much Christian activity does it take to measure up to your standard? I already know in whom I believe, and He has me held tightly!

[bramps]

Boasting about your accomplishments seems to your fallback position to justify your advocacy for smoking pot. I think James was speaking to folks like you:
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Why would you bring up that you haven’t been stoned in a long time? If it’s harmless, why is that relevant? Yes, on an issue that would end up harming children, I am judgmental. So where would you get the pot to smoke if you chose to today? Would that dealer only be selling it to you? Would he only be selling pot? You seem to live in a very selfish world where your circumstances are the only one’s that matter. But they don’t.

Just curious. What percentage of Christians do you think would agree with your positions on pot? Do you feel that you glorify God when have you inhale a joint?

[WVKayaker]

Yes, on an issue that would end up harming children, I am judgmental. ...

Sorry, but you are failing to make any cogent argument beyond YOUR PERSONAL BIASES.

My accomplishments fly in the face of your "false reality". I am not "falling back" on anything. The thread listed al sorts of terrible results of smoking pot. I, and others herein, demonstrate that your opinions don't amount to a hill of beans in that, you have no facts to back your OPINION.

Maybe you just don't understand, but boasting of my accomplishments is presenting FACTS into the argument. I don't know why you feel you can be a judge of another. That is God's role.

If you so dense as to NOT understand the entirety of what I wrote, it is not my problem. I am of Christ. My salvation does not depend on whether I smoked pot or not. It is an herb, given by God, like all things. That you have been conditioned by your government to abhor those who may use it, is evidence enough that you do not understand God's economy.

I do not smoke it now because some of the weak may stumble if I smoked it in front of them. Does that mean that I must stop smoking pot completely? Only if the Holy Spirit convicts. I defer my desire for anything, if it may offend a weaker brother or sister, and cause them to stumble. But we are only having a conversation about the substance, an herb created by God. You wish to make it into more.

I know the Holy Spirit, and you are not He! You may not be a Christian, as all I have gotten from you is OPINION, and you repeatedly ask about how Christians may feel about my actions.

You seem to live in a very selfish world where your circumstances are the only one’s that matter. But they don’t.-brampie

You seem to live in a very selfish world where your OPINIONS are the only one’s that matter. But they don’t.

"Just the facts, ma'am!"

Romans 7: 4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. ...

[JustSayNoToNannies]

on an issue that would end up harming children

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).

[WVKayaker]

wasting our time...

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Agreed, if the goal is to educate the person we're addressing. My goal is to educate lurkers.

[bramps]

It is an herb, given by God, like all things
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Should a Christian feel at ease with God while using cocaine or heroin?

I defer my desire for anything, if it may offend a weaker brother or sister, and cause them to stumble.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
How can one stumble over something that isn't sinful? You've pointed out your extraordinary accomplishments while under the influence of pot. Why wouldn't you seek to help brothers and sisters find their true potential like you?

And again back to the drug dealer question you choose not to answer: When you did buy pot did he only sell to perfected men like you, or perhaps he also sold it to the 12 year old boy next door. Or the dealer he sold to sold it to the kid. And many other kids. And did he just sell pot? And then did he invest your money in mutual funds or more likely other illicit activity? Sounds like you've bought your share of pot in the past. Did you ever consider things like these or just the needs of your own flesh?

[WVKayaker]

blah blah blah...

Cocaine and heroine are processed drugs. Marijuana is an herb that grows like a weed. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and most other colonials had hemp patches. They used the fibers from it for lots of things. I have no doubt that they also smoked the flowers!

Again, ignorance is bliss for you, eh?

You can be the one to stumble, friend, as you are falling all over YOURSELF with self-righteousness. It is only a sin when one is convicted of something, BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. You seek to find some little crack in my conversation so you can again bend my words. I don't answer hypothetical questions, because they are irrelevant to the conversation.

Read your Bible, if you have one, and give me a Scriptural admonition against smoking of pot. I know it back-to-front, and have seen nothing in those writings with which the Holy Spirit has convicted me. I would not offer my Jewish friends any pork bbq nor oysters! It is something with which they have been taught not to eat for their religious reasons. It may cause them to stumble (Pork BBQ is pretty good stuff, and grilled oysters at Drago's in NOLA are absolutely divine!)

[WVKayaker]

ditto, really! Some people wear some pretty big blinders!

[Publius]

I have no doubt that they also smoked the flowers!

They made a tea from the leaves. Washington would use the tea to bathe his gums after removing his dentures for the night. It was something like a hemp mouthwash.

[visualops]

that was my thought. they’re just not hiding it, not that’s there’s necessarily a lot more of them. the ones who thought no one was getting high are the shocked ones. I have to say as I got older I thought that people’s interest in drugs would fade and kids would be smarter but then later i realized geez nothing has changed since the 70’s lol. I am also surprised by how many young people smoke.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

This article is BS you would expect from our leftist tyrants. It's nanny state crap that uses children to get an emotional response. Weed has been widespread with lenient laws all over this nation for years. Law enforcement quit wasting resources on it because they saw it wasn't causing harm to others for the most part. This nanny state contradiction stands out like a sore thumb. Weed doesn't cause aggression, or a habit that leads to crime either. I don't smoke it, but it's been around for long enough to know it's affect.

[count-your-change]

Prager could have mentioned that societies usually perish from inward rot as the virtues that produced them are abandoned.

[bramps]

Is there scripture telling you not to use processed drugs like heroin or cocaine? So they're o.k. , right? Like pot? And did you eat the pot leaves right off the plant, or were they PROCESSED? ... And why do you ignore the question about who you bought the pot from? Because you know that you helped finance a dealer, a dealer that was part of supply chain that fed pot, cocaine, and heroin to children and adults that weren't as perfect as you! But you don't want to acknowledge the fact that you don't live in a vacuum. You purchasing your grass meant that your dealer had a larger investment to make his next purchase with and sell to a larger base. Your libertarian model would be great if you were on an island where only you had to be concerned with the addicts and layabouts that you helped create. But you don't. You live in a society where people who make responsible, disciplined decisions have to pick up the mess that you helped create.

[WVKayaker]

blah, blah blah... self-righteous is your only defense?

You don't want to accept and know the truth, but want to keep emoting your opinions. Your conjectures are only more of the SOS-DD!

Get a life!

[WVKayaker]

You live in a society where people who make responsible, disciplined decisions have to pick up the mess that you helped create.

More of my "messes"!

I create jobs. How about you? Do you do anything besides emote your criticisms?