Don't Do Drugs, Kids. Not Even Marijuana.

I recently sat face-to-face with what marijuana does to the human being and it was not pretty. He is a friend, he is young, and he is convinced that all the dope he has smoked is OK because “God created it” and he is in good shape because “it doesn’t control me.” But the conversation was far from normal. The longer the conversation went the more unhinged from reality he became. His fantasies grew with each telling, his outlandish promises took over his sense of what was real and reasonable, and he was hearing and seeing things. He has genuine potential and parents who love him and provide for him, but he has gone a long way toward destroying his future.

Don’t do drugs, kids.

We are told by marijuana advocates, and I speak as a resident of Colorado, that the drug is safe, even medical. We are promised that it can be sold and consumed safely. And we are thrown the economic trump card that all the tax revenues will “go to the children.” But reality is very different from the propaganda. This isn’t the marijuana of the 1960’s and 70’s; this stuff is a serious and dangerous hallucinogen. The research is mounting, and the anecdotal evidence is following suit – this experiment in dope legalization is going to go badly for an entire generation. (This link to Bill Bennett’s book, Going to Pot, contains several links to the recent research on several marijuana related issues.)

I don’t want to recount the research here, but I do want to make some predictions.

Within 10 years, the rates of marijuana-related teen mental disorders will skyrocket. More and more young teens and pre-teens are getting their hands on the stuff right now, and with its increased potency, the kids won’t last long.

On a related note, public school districts and law enforcement agencies will spend an ever-increasing percentage of their budget dealing with pot related problems, causing their "normal" jobs to suffer.

Within 5 years it will become clear that the tax revenue collected by the state will not be enough to cover the state’s costs in handling marijuana-related problems. For example, the costs associated with alcohol far outweigh the taxes brought in by the sales of alcohol.

Within 10 years there will be a serious grassroots movement afoot to repeal the legalization of pot, but it will face a (likely) impossible task. The genie has been let out of the bottle and there may be no putting it back.