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AGAINST MARIJUANA

I'm troubled about recent articles regarding legalizing marijuana.  Wake up and smell the ink on your reality check.  If you ingest marijuana, the bill of self-destruction will come due.

Marijuana is the third most common recreational drug in America, second to alcohol and tobacco, and is the most commonly abused illicit drug.  Its strength has increased 10 times since the 1970s.  One form, cannabis, contains 400 chemicals.

Nicotine and carcinogens, key components that cause cancer, are found in marijuana.  Its ingestion leads to distorted perception, impaired coordination, lowered intelligence, and difficulties with memory, learning, thinking, concentration and problem solving.  It also reduces reaction time while driving.  Family, work and school times are affected.

Marijuana can also increase heart rate by 20-100 percent for up to three hours.  Heart attack risk can increase five times within the first hour.  Marijuana smokers typically inhale deeper and retain smoke longer than tobacco smokers and experience daily cough, chest illness and lung infections.

Among marijuana's young abusers, it can cause indifference to homework, impairment in reading, math, concentration and memory, and lowering of sexual inhibitions.  Our brains undergo extensive change and re-wiring between the ages of 12 and 25.  Is it worth the risk?

Nine percent of marijuana ingesters become addicted.  That figure increases to 17 percent among the young and 25-30 percent of daily users.

I will never, and I shout never, try marijuana.  I already have something in me that is 100 percent proof positive - the power of truth.  If my critics label me as blind, then let it be so.  What blinds me is the light of truth.

BRET SNYDER

Hutchinson