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

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.

“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.

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.

— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist.

by no sane definition does Woody’s inhalation of smoke affect any body other than Woody’s

if Woody sat on a mountain top alone he might be right but not otherwise.

If Woody sits in his living room alone when he inhales, how is he affecting any body other than his?

the legalize drugs crowd is wrong for thinking they can equate drug use and the harm it does with personal freedom.

Personal freedom encompasses using alcohol or any other mind-altering drug and inflicting on oneself the consequent harm. "Personal freedom" to do only what the government deems nonharmful is no freedom at all.

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.

By the way Capone went to jail for tax evasion not bootlegging.

Irrelevant to my point: by ending Prohibition of the mind-altering drug alcohol, we moved money out of the hands of Capone's peer/competitor rumrunners into the hands of law-abiding businessmen.

So is the answer Jesus or pot?

Are the two mutually exclusive? Do you think Jesus would consider smoking pot to be a sin?

You pose the most ridiculous questions to me, that really can't be answered, except by a person involved. It is conviction from the Holy Spirit that reveals a sin, and being open to His voice and gentle prodding. God doesn't yell!

I smoked pot. Jesus still loves me. Was it Him giving me permission, or was it me just ignoring Him?

Neither, I think. I don't believe I was sinning when I was getting high. You obviously do. I can therefor assume you want to play God, or His authorized representative.

I KNOW the Holy Spirit, FRiend, and you are not he!!

While having taken a few hits, I have designed some magnificent homes, which I built and made folk very happy. As afore noted, I have been tested and was able to excel when examined to et my contractor's license. Was it pot?

I wasn't " stoned" as you probably relate drunkenness, but I was more aware, and my mind was more creative. The ideas flowed from my mind, like a river, and the end result was more efficient or grand, due to my usage of that "demon weed". I could recall things that were hidden or murky in my memory.

I have been in Federal Courts four times as a pro se Plaintiff. I successfully prosecuted three of them against monies owed to me( took home some $$$), and the fourth was against my state whereby a regulation was changed due to my challenge. IOW, I won all four cases, and in every situation, I was standing in front of a judge after having smoked that "demon weed" I have no formal legal training. I was up against the state Attorney General, in the last one. but was I sinning? I am pretty sure I was not. I am still saved by the blood, regardless.

Jesus or pot? What a stupid, puerile attempt at attacking my morals and ethics. Jesus is my Lord and Savior. He is my Goel, and my Lord. His death set me free from sin... and when He wishes, He makes it clear the things I should not do. I don't smoke the stuff these days, but I could, as long it causes nobody to stumble.

This article makes broad claims. IMHO, and brings out the Gestapo FReeper element who can't handle the freedom they see in others. It's much easier to rely on black and white laws. It is much more difficult to allow God to reign in your life.

I won't bother to post to you again, because you demonstrate an authoritarian mindset that can never accept what God has offered for me. I only offer these anecdotes because of the misrepresentation herein by so many legalists. I live as Paul describes, as a man no longer under the "law of sin and death", but instead choose to allow the Holy Spirit to guide my days. I am His.

Gotta go, as we are starting a new project here tomorrow, and I am on the other side of the world where it is 10:30 at night. I will pray for you to understand what God can do, when one allows Him to become personal and close-up.

Romans 7: excerpt and comment by Mike Blume- This is most scientific in a very spiritual manner! He called that something in his flesh by the name of "sin". And since he realized that exerting his flesh to work only stirred "sin" up, he had better find a different way in which to see the good deeds come forth through him. All he could think of was to call on God to deliver him from the flesh which held that sin! And that was exactly the answer!! (Romans. 7:24).

He realized that he, himself, delighted in the Law. But another law existed which he then discovered. And that Law warred against the good law that was in his mind, which he willed to obey. And this newly discovered law was actually bringing him into captivity to the Principle of sin.

When He called on God for help, God delivered him through Jesus Christ's death on the cross. Its as though we died to be free of the old cruel husband, since he wasn't going to die (Romans. 7:2-4). And we died, but yet lived on to enjoy the freedom from the old man that our deaths provided. How can this be? Well, we died by faith, believing that Christ died instead us.

So, Paul said God delivered him in Romans. 7:25.

And another Law that existed, which he then found to be the answer, was the reality of the effort to believe and thus walk after the strength of the Spirit rather than the strength of the flesh. And so long as we rely upon God to deliver us through faith in the fact that we died with Christ, we remain above the law of sin and death above that newly discovered law that explained why he could not do good. We must continually realize that we need to rely upon God's Spirit to keep us above sin, and not rely upon our weak human power of self effort to stop sinning.

As much as the law of aerodynamics teaches us that our presence in a certain shaped vehicle that is operating a certain way will keep us above the law of gravity and thus cheat the law of gravity, we can cheat the law of sin and death. And this higher law, the law that cheat sin and death, is called the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. We must be in Christ as much as one would need to be in an airplane to escape the law of gravity. And we are in Christ by having faith in His death for us! And that is what we must understand when we pray and close our prayers saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ."

The point is that, even though it a small amount, you would take the dollar and the one hit of the joint IF one hit actually does have no effect as you would argue. So would you take one hit of a joint before a major test? In other words, does even one hit have an effect?

So let me get this straight: I'm about to take a major test - say, the Massachusetts Bar Exam - and you're positing to me that just before I'm about to take this test, and say I'm hanging around in the corridor outside of the room where I'll be taking the test, some person, who I assume I don't know and have never seen before in my life, says "Hey Hemingway's Ghost, I'll pay you the princely sum of $1 if you take a hit off this joint I hold in my hand BEFORE you take the test."

What's supposed to happen after that? If I say yes, do I follow this stranger into the bathroom? Do we walk out of the building and into an alley? Maybe we go outside to the street, where his El Camino is parked, and there I take the hit off the joint?

Does this strange man just hang around public buildings all day long offering people $1 to take a hit off his joint before taking tests? How many people does he make this offer to in the course of an average business day? Does he use fresh joints for everyone, or does everyone have to take one hit off the same joint? Is it good weed, or is it Mexican shake? Is it laced with anything, perhaps?

In sum, your scenario is ludicrous, and I think you, bramps, might be under the influence of some mind-altering substance for positing it in the first place. It's an exceptionally clumsy attempt at "proving your point," which is to suggest that one hit off a joint is a mind-altering experience.

Here's a shocker for you, ace: weed affects people differently. Some people could probably rip 40 bong hits and ace a differential equations exam, while others could take one hit off a one-hitter and be a little bit merry and paranoid for half an hour.

I'm beginning to think you don't know the first thing about the thing you wish to criminalize and/or turn into contraband.

thank you...

i think the issue here is most folks like you know who simply hate pot smokers because maybe they view them all as Occupy types

and have little or no direct knowledge of the drug or it's effects and are not open to reasonable and candid conversations about it effects, harm, and so forth

there are legitimate questions about abuse and kids and whatnot

but it gets lost with folks who simply hate the users

some like manc do bring up points from their side worthy of discussion no question

and you were right , pot effects folks differently just like alcohol does

what gets lost in all this is the avenue marijuana laws have provided the govt to usurp our rights

that is undebatable and it's sad to see on a conservative forum folks unconcerned with that

regardless of views on legalization or decrim

rolling back RICO, confiscation and unwarranted highway stops etc are topics conservatives should be concerned over

these are means the govt use to attack our property and gun rights...and they use that voraciously

the legalize drugs crowd is wrong for thinking they can equate drug use and the harm it does with personal freedom.

The question has never been “personal freedom”

Then why did you bring it up, artless dodger?

but rather the overthrow of the moral codes of society at large

56% Favor Legalizing, Regulating Marijuana

If Woody sits in his living room alone when he inhales, how is he affecting any body other than his?

So there may be some Woody willing to sit in his living room but they won’t stay there.

If he leaves, how will he affect any body other than his?

The same argument is made for abortion.

ADD? We covered this already:

The vital difference there is that abortion by definition involves another person's body.
Not by the abortionist definition.
What are you, a relativist? They're wrong
Sure they’re wrong

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.