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Much has been said on the subject of marijuana in recent years. Unfortunately most of the information that reaches the ears of the general public is dangerously wrong.
Dangerous how?
Well, think about it this way. Your child's friendly DARE officer grossly exaggerates the dangers of pot. He'll recite to the class all sorts of lies and half-truths, some so blatantly false that he probably has trouble saying them with a straight face. Now, kids aren't stupid. They know when somebody is feeding them lies. So, eventually the children start experimenting with pot. Most do. After all, it's readily available. And they start realizing that maybe that friendly DARE officer wasn't so truthful. So if he was lying about pot, well maybe he was lying about heroin and cocaine too. And the kids realize all too late that the dangers of hard drugs are frighteningly real.
Another junky dead.
Maybe it was an overdose; maybe he was shot while robbing a liquor store to get his next fix. Doesn't matter. Just another dead addict. A waste of human life. Another excuse to get "tough on drugs" ... starting with marijuana. And the cycle begins anew. But what if that addict was your child? A decent kid with good grades, maybe just a little too impressionable. Misinformation steered him down the wrong path. Should he have to pay for that mistake with his life ?
What can we do to stop this horrible pattern?
Okay, I know a lot of people balk at the idea of legalization, but it's really the only solution. The main problem with drug prohibition is the criminal factor it adds. Currently if a kid wants to get pot, he has to seek out a drug dealer. So he finds one and things go well for a while, but eventually the dealer realizes he can make more money if he starts selling coke and heroin too. So he does. And soon those horrible, life-draining drugs are right there on the table being served up to your child with a healthy dose of peer pressure. Scary, isn't it?
Okay, now imagine this : the government taxes marijuana and sells it in liquor stores. You'd have to be 21 to buy it and our country would actually be MAKING money instead of losing the $16 billion a year it currently does in the drug war. And the the people buying pot wouldn't be exposed to the hard drugs that a dealer might sell. Sure some kids would just have 21 year old friends buy it for them. But that's unavoidable and happens now with alcohol anyway. No matter what you do some kids are going to get their hands on marijuana. What we need to do is MINIMIZE the number of children affected. This is called harm reduction. And it does work! Just look across the ocean to Holland where marijuana has been decriminalized since the '70's. Hard drug usage there is a FRACTION of what it is in the United States.
Our government likes to parade around the fact that marijuana is easier than alcohol to get for most teens. And it is. You know why? Drug dealers don't ask for an I.D. ! Plain and simple. Sell pot in a liquor store and suddenly it's a lot harder for kids to get!
As to the increased availablity of marijuana to adults, I feel that it will pose far less of a threat than alcohol or nicotine has. Switzerland's World Health Organization agrees with me. Check out the link at the bottom of the page.
And locking people away in prison for smoking a plant is ludicrous! It's cruel and it overcrowds the prisons to the point where rapists and child molesters are being released after serving terms of sometimes a year or less! Meanwhile a peaceful potsmoker who never hurt a soul sits cold and alone in a cell, robbed of his freedom for YEARS for smoking a joint. Now I think that sitting in a prison cell and possibly getting RAPED by sick, twisted inmates is of far greater consequence to a person's health than ANY temporary short-term memory loss!
If you still feel that the health risks of marijuana outweigh any benefits that would be gained by legalization, I urge you to follow these links :
World Health Organization research confirms that marijuana is safer than alcohol or tobacco.
10 Things Every Parent, Teenager, and Teacher Should Know About Marijuana
If you agree with what I've said on this page and are one of the growing number of people that are beginning to realize the War on Drugs is a cruel, senseless waste of time and money, please GET ACTIVE! Many people I know would like to help fight the drug war, but none want to stand up and be martyrs. Very few are willing to risk their reputation (and possibly even their lives considering how ruthless the government and police can be) to stand up for a cause that they believe is right.
Now I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this. I too wish to remain anonymous, since I have a new wife to support and she's more important to me than all the pot in Amsterdam.
So how does one help to spread the truth about marijuana without risking their privacy? One simple way I thought of is to simply write the address of this site, http://puffitup.ourfamily.com , on EVERY DOLLAR BILL YOU SPEND! Get the message out via United States currency (or whatever your country of residence may be). I wish more than anything that every parent, teacher, policeman, and congressman on earth could read the words on this page. With your help, they very well could! I don't know about the laws of other nations, but I have found out that writing on currency is protected by the U.S. Constitution under the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Doing this will only take a couple seconds out of your busy day and it could make all the difference in the world.
Please direct all comments, questions, and anything else you need to get off your chest to sirpuffington@yahoo.com