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"Since this is the case, should alcohol be made illegal?"

Not the point, but you know that.

When people like Jack Cole make the claim that we'd be better off legalizing, regulating, controling, and taxing marijuana -- and point to alcohol as a model -- I've got to call them on it.

It's not keeping alcohol away from teens, despite the fact that it's harder for them to obtain than marijuana. Legalizing a drug brings legitimacy to the product, as evidenced by both alcohol and tobacco.

IMO, legalizing marijuana will increase use, especially among teens.

IMO, legalizing marijuana will increase use, especially among teens.

Robert,

What you say may be true (i'm not sure, but it may be). However, based on the medical literature and research available to me, IF marijuana were made legal at any point, I would prefer my child experiment with that more than alcohol. I would rather them abstain from both, but given one or the other, I am afraid that I would have to prefer the lesser intoxicant. One which in all likelihood would make the child lazy and apathetic verses one which instills a state of "liquid courage". I would rather him be in the basement watching re-reuns of Ren and Stimpy while eating a box of twinkies than running around town fueled on alcohol. More crimes of aggression, vandalism, and acts which are more likely to cause bodily harm are made under the influence of the Alcohol.

I am not convinced that children shifting their attention to marijuana instead of alchohol would be such a bad thing.

Of course, we all know that both are currently readily available, and the use of both are on the rise.

I'm not sure if the legalization arguement is even relevant at this point. Most studies show they are both readily (and almost equally) available.

For the sake of argument, I will agree with you that legalization of marijuana would increase use marginally.

So would the legalization of opium and cocaine marginally increase their use.

Even conceding for the sake of argument that all drug use is bad, I would nonetheless argue that the damage to our society, political life, and the relationship between citizen and state being done by the obsessive-compulsive enforcement of these sumptuary laws is FAR worse. Historical rights against abusive searches and arrests have been abrogated by the 'necessities' of SWAT-teams.

The puritanical streak in the American personality will certainly be the foundation of any American Totalitarianism, whether led by the so-called left, or by the so-called right.

I encourage all young people, of every country, to disrespect wrongful authority; and wrongful authority is certainly what the WOD represents.