As one who believes in the Constitution and also in the wisdom of social limitations, I don’t have a problem with Colorado and Washington State legalizing marijuana. Where I do have the problem is all the other states seeing a bandwagon and jumping on instead of letting these two states be the laboratory for the ret of the nation.
This article has a couple examples of statistical effects of legalization in Colorado. http://pluggedin.focusonthefamily.com/the-costs-of-marijuana-legalization-a-colorado-snapshot/
It seems to indicate some serious negative societal effects. I think a couple more years are truly necessary for the big picture.
The kid next door to me smokes, a lot. He sits in his car for hours listening to the radio and smoking weed. He’s become far more angry and isolated, bordering on paranoid.
Sure, his behavior is fine for him, but his behavior also affects me. Imagine if I wanted to sell my house and prospective buyers walk up while he’s in his car. That’s a direct effect on me selling my house and you cannot make any claim that it isn’t.
There are significant negative effect on job readiness and employability. Homelessness among younger adults is up dramatically. I was in Spokane a few weeks ago and there were hundreds of high losers waiting for free meals, clogging up the system.
Like I said, I don’t have a real problem with legitimate medical needs. But, when there are more pot shops than gas stations, I does make one wonder just how many people are THAT sick.
Marijuana is a negative for every imbecile who smokes or ingests it. BUT is especially bad for teenagers because their brain is not fully formed. Probably their brain never recovers and they permanently shave 5-10 points off their IQ. I am talking about a serious pot head who is a teenager. Obviously one joint a month will not ruin his/her brain for good.
Countless legal activities can be addictive, have “negative societal effects” and cause issues with employability.
We don’t outlaw them because people can do them responsibly and we generally don’t punish people for bad things they haven’t even done. Just because countless people are killing themselves with fast food and their families are suffering, doesn’t mean we must ban all good people from ordering a double burger. It doesn’t mean we need SWAT raids for people making donuts because they might become a burden one day.
Imagine saying “we shouldn’t have junk food on every corner for all these fat lards to get more fat until they cant work. Look at all these slow fatties everywhere. There aught to be a law! I don’t eat junk food so it doesn’t affect ME.”