Tuesday, December 29, 2009

How's that drug war working out for y'all?

According to a report in today's Birmingham News Alabama teens use drugs at a rate higher than the national average.

How's that drug war working out for y'all? How has arresting and imprisoning everyone ever caught with a joint or any other illicit drug kept drugs out of the hands of kids? It hasn't. That's what I have been saying for years. What it has done is destroy our criminal justice system, corrupt our police officers, turn non-violent people into violent animals, destroyed families and bloated our prison system with people who do not need to be there to the taxpayer tune of $132 million a year.

Overall, alcohol and tobacco use has de­clined among Alabama teens, but marijuana use appears to be on the rise.


See how we've managed to decrease alcohol and tobacco consumption without locking up everyone who uses alcohol and tobacco? We used education to do that. We can do the same with marijuana and other drugs.

And this has to be the most ass backwards thinking I have ever encountered.

Carissa Anthony, coordinator of the Hoo­ver Coalition Promoting a Safe and Healthy Community, said the legalization of mari­juana in some states for medical use may be breaking down psychological barriers and making marijuana appear less harmful than it is.


So, other states making forward progress on marijuana laws is responsible for teenagers in Alabama smoking more pot? I'd like her to explain why marijuana use rates among teens are LOWER in states where it has been legalized for medical purposes, but here in Alabama, where it has not yet been legalized for medical purposes, teen usage rates are HIGHER. That's funny. In the most PROHIBITIONIST state of them all marijuana use rates are higher among teens than in states where it is legal for medical use and has been decriminalized for non-medical use. The clear solution is to legalize marijuana and use education campaigns to decrease use rates....just like we have been able to do with alcohol and tobacco.

See, if we want to decrease the number of our children who use drugs, the clear solution is to legalize drugs and use education to help kids make safe, healthy choices.


2 comments:

Chris said...

I wonder how cannabis usage among teens has changed since Mississippi passed their decriminalization measure?

Dan said...

In a perfect world there would not be a reason for any drug, but our world is far from perfect. I wish there was no need for any drug. This is not the case.

I still have personal turmoil about making marijuana legal for adults. Some say marijuana is a gateway drug. I now wonder if some move on to harder drugs because they can not get marijuana. Or is it their drug pusher want them to move to a harder more costly drug. I have had my drug pusher (medical doctors) try / moves me to the a newer drug when the current one is about to go generic. (At times I was too sick to see what was going on.) This is very wrong in my eyes. I am not sure if they were trying to help me or the drug companies. I now try to only use generic as they have a longer history of use. How many TV ads do you see for bad medical drugs?

I now have no doubt medical marijuana would be a safer option for many. There is a lot of talk about lowering medical cost, medical marijuana should be an easy choice if it was legal.

If the law would use their resources to control the harder drugs like crack, would this be a better world? Illegal drugs is one thing that fuels gangs. Would making marijuana take away gang's money or would they make up the lost with harder drugs. Here lies some of my turmoil.

If people would use marijuana instead of alcohol would thing be better? Neither would be best.

I hope we do not look back and wish we had made marijuana legal and put more effort into keeping our country safe from outside forces. A nuclear explosion in one of our major cities would be very grave.

The drug war is not going well, are we putting too many resources into the wrong war?

I hope we do not find out we are not putting enough resources in the right war, the war on terror.