Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jul 2012
Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA)
Copyright: 2012 North County Times
Contact: http://www.nctimes.com/app/forms/letters/index.php
Website: http://www.nctimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080
Author: Thomas K. Arnold

THE PERILS OF POT AGAIN

The story in yesterday's paper about the 3-year-old Murrieta boy who 
was hospitalized after he ate an "undisclosed amount" of a relative's 
medical marijuana supply made this anti-pothead's blood boil.

The last time I wrote a column on the perils of marijuana ---- and on 
the sham I believe the whole medical marijuana movement is ---- I 
received all sorts of angry comments, not just in this newspaper but 
also on my personal Facebook page, from people who essentially argued 
that alcohol is a far worse problem than marijuana.

I agree ---- alcohol is a much bigger problem than pot. Drunken 
drivers cause far more accidents and deaths than drivers who are 
stoned, chronic alcohol abuse leads to all sorts of health conditions 
and premature death, and booze costs us as a society many more 
billions of dollars than all illegal drugs combined, when you factor 
in treatment costs, health-related costs, productivity losses and 
other "human capital" expenses.

But ---- and this is a very big "but" ---- one reason alcohol wreaks 
so much more havoc on society is that its use is far more widespread 
than that of marijuana or other drugs. And that, dear reader, is 
largely a function of the fact that alcohol is legal, while marijuana 
and other drugs are not. Heck, I'd venture to say french fries and 
Big Macs cost society more in health care and other human-capital 
expenses than marijuana, cocaine or even heroin, for the very same 
reason: Products that are legal tend to be much more widely used than 
products that are not.

That's why I oppose attempts to legalize drugs. Sure, taking pot and 
other drugs off the black market would certainly reduce crime, but 
the impact on our society, I fear, would be deadly. Say what you will 
about booze ---- it's the only so-called "drug" (and I lump 
cigarettes into that category, as well) that, if used sparingly, has 
no negative affect on one's health, and may even be beneficial.

Supporters of medical marijuana say pot, too, can be beneficial, 
helping cancer patients, for example, overcome nausea and pain. But 
it merely masks the symptoms; it doesn't heal anything. I have no 
qualms about a doctor prescribing marijuana to a cancer patient who 
can't eat, or is in terrible pain. But I do have a problem with how 
easy it is for the average Joe to obtain a medical marijuana card and 
use it to buy pot at legally sanctioned marijuana dispensaries, 
simply to get high.

In the Murrieta case, we have a 3-year-old child who became gravely 
ill after ingesting medical marijuana legally obtained by his 
grandmother. But Granny didn't keep her pot locked up in a medicine 
cabinet; according to published reports, she used it to bake 
chocolate-chip cookies that the little boy simply couldn't resist.

We've all heard the old Mary Poppins song about how a "spoonful of 
sugar makes the medicine go down ... in a most delightful way."

But in this case, it was an innocent little child who went down ---- 
and that's just plain wrong as can be.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom