Pubdate: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 Source: Dayton Daily News (OH) Copyright: 2013 Dayton Daily News Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/7JXk4H3l Website: http://www.daytondailynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/120 Author: Frank Abernathy Note: Guest columnist Frank Abernathy is a retired biological researcher who used to work for the gastroenterology department at Children's Medical Center in Dayton. COLUMN AUTHOR FINDS READERS' RESPONSES 'ENCOURAGING' I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the commentary on my article was quite supportive. That is refreshing and encouraging. There was one comment about how doing this would encourage some naive non-users to try out drugs for free in the federally funded drug houses. That may be true. However, if they were willing to do this, they would eventually have tried it on the streets anyway. The main difference would be that drug dealers would heartily encourage them to use it, whereas the people in the federal facility would strip away the "sexiness" of it - by allowing them to observe people who come there and do drugs. I doubt anyone would think that was very sexy. One commenter was really pushing the idea of legalizing marijuana which seems to have a lot of momentum these days. I have seen the results of pot smoking in the home (not mine, of course). I believe it impacts kids who breathe the secondhand smoke, similar to breathing secondhand cigarette smoke. The results are not pretty. I think it messes with their minds - permanently. So I don't believe it should be legalized for use in the home. These pot smokers can go to the federal drug facility, like all other drug users. Editors used the term "easy solution" in my column's headline. This is somewhat misleading. There will be nothing easy about it - because it has to be approved by the federal government, and we all know how well that works. I think the idea of a petition is a good one. How do we go about doing that? - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom