On Monday, May 2, 2005, at 02:56 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
If marijuana were legal, it wouldn't place any "drain on our police department. Then the police could use those drained of resources on arresting murderers, rapists, armed robbers, etc and we would have the prison space needed to hold all the people who should be held in prison to protect the rest of us.
Since marijuana only effects the people who use it and some people even have to use it for medicinal purposes and users are not hurting you or anyone else, legalization seems to offer all benefits and no harm.
Robert Halfhill Loring Park
Whether one is for legalizing marijuana sales or not, there are issues of addiction and behavior that can put users or intoxicants into a police inter action resulting in arrests. There are also issues of driving while intoxicated that can and do involve innocent bystanders and other drivers.
Unlike cigarettes, there will likely be a standard of intoxication for legal marijuana and driving or machine operation will be precluded.
The spectrum of users is also likely to be broad enough to include those who are otherwise engaged in criminal activities.
I think legal marijuana will add another layer to police responsibility as well as adding new laws to handle the various situations. True, use/possession will be more defined and there will be fewer arrests or none for mere use or legal possession, but when this happens will be far in the future after law passage.
Adding marijuana to cigarettes will pose additional health issues to the system (and costs) which all of us will have to cover one way or another. The (post-mortem) shrunken brains of addicted marijuana users shows that this is not a harmless pastime. I've not kept up with the lung damage studies, but I am sure they are out there, too. Hot smoke from any source is damaging to lung tissue.
I think the drug dealers are counting on marijuana being illegal for some time to come. What do we do in the meantime?
Best wishes,
Laura
Laura Waterman Wittstock Minneapolis, MN 612-387-4915 www.laurawatermanwittstock.com http://laurawatermanwittstock.blogspot.com/
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