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.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Yep, the end goal of the left is just like with guns. Start small, but the end game is total legalization of drugs and total banning of guns. Hell, you have libertarians on here fighting like nuts for half their side. In fact, if given the choice I think most libertarians would rather have their drugs and give up guns. They’re mostly just drug addled frauds.
” he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.”
Hogwash... If, as you state that it happened so it must have been foreordained by God, then the immorality that is so rampant must also be foreordained by God.
The Catholic Church rightfully rejects predestination. For predestination to be a valid concept, none of us would have free will or bear any responsibility for our actions.
you don;t see it but fine ,so be it.
Did your sister drink alcohol or smoke cigs first?
I did
41 years ago
Cigarettes
Alcohol
A Darvon
Pot
Some Sedatives
LSD...be wary
Mushrooms and peyote
Quaaludes.....this drug should be given like flouride to middle aged wifeys with ebbing sex drive
Coke..never liked it
And so forth
So do i blame cigarettes?
Worse thing about pot is chronic use makes one procrastinate..
And i hate that
Huh?
Listen and learn.....small grasshopper ......
Alcohol was never prohibited. (It was legal to possess, for instance.) It was made a bit more difficult to get.
Not a big fan of that one. I’m for torture for say jihadists and I’m for dp for illegal drug dealers and possibly repeat offender users.
Is it possible that in this case, and the case of prohibition, that there is an appearance of increased use due to the fact that the users are no longer hiding it?
You opine; you draw conclusions. I would not say you "think."
Libertarians /liberals always argue for no Govt when it suits them but when asked if people should be allowed to marry their sister, kids take drugs, no sex age , should people be allowed to take heroin then they can;t answer or have double speak and it’s all because they just want to do what ever they want to do and in this case get high and zone out.
Meanwhile the very same state wants to strip a constitutional right away like guns and self protection.
Precisely! What is happening in Washington State is to be expected in the period immediately following the decriminalization. Usage will return to pre-decriminalization levels, or perhaps even lower, within a few years.
While I don’t like the idea of more people (young or old) consuming mind altering drugs, I also don’t see what gives the state the authority to tell me what I may or may not put into my body.
If I am not sovereign over my own body, then I’m a slave to whomever holds that authority.
Real freedom comes with certain risks and untidiness. People who want a perfect society, want slavery by default.
They could make suicide legal, but I wouldn’t join in.
Oddly I think that if they made suicide legal, not as many people would do it.
Cogent and reasonable
I agree
It’ll be both. When people don’t have to hide it, they’ll use it in your face. Potheads are the biggest dicks about that already. Also, when more people see it and are used to it being normalized, use rates will skyrocket. So for now it’s probably already those hooked on it that are out and about. But it’ll spread like an open wound as well.
Ok, I used the wrong word. I know they would.
actally no, she took drugs at age 15 and drank coke with her spliff.
SHe is now a mess, lost her kids, lost her job, and now the Govt, tax payers supports her in England.
She would tell you that she started on weed to be one of the crowd, the in crowd so to speak and regrets having started any drug.
She has been in many detox places and she said many other druggies there have said te same thing.
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