Pubdate: Tue, 21 Jan 2014
Source: Augusta Chronicle, The (GA)
Copyright: 2014 The Augusta Chronicle
Contact: http://chronicle.augusta.com/help/contact
Website: http://chronicle.augusta.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/31

EXPERIMENTING WITH DRUGS

Marijuana's Legalization Spurs Spate Of Unanswered Policy Questions

Sometimes it pays to show up late to the game.

That's a prudent policy when it comes to legalizing marijuana,
something other states have done in recent years.

Georgia - one of two-dozen states where marijuana is still totally
illegal - has an advantageous view from the sidelines, where it can
observe the social and economic impacts of legalization before
entering the fray.

State leaders, including Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, have indicated an
openness to discuss legalization amid growing public support. A recent
poll conducted by InsiderAdvantage for Atlanta's WAGA-TV and Morris
News Service showed 51 percent of the state's registered voters
support legalization for medical purposes.

President Obama recently - also, incredibly and irresponsibly - told
The New Yorker magazine that he considers the drug to be a bad habit
but no more dangerous than alcohol.

He should have checked with the government's own National Institute on
Drug Abuse, which has long reported that marijuana causes permanent
brain damage among adolescents, including lowering their IQs.

And the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is part of the
White House, has repeatedly pointed out that marijuana smoke has more
carcinogens than tobacco smoke.

"Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars warning about drugs, often
about marijuana, but these efforts were dramatically undercut by the
president's comments," former U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook wrote in
Tuesday's Washington Times.

The president also appears to favor legalization efforts, telling the
magazine that "it's important for it to go forward because it's
important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion
of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select
few get punished."

Though the drug has been legal for medicinal use in California since
1996, similar laws on the books in most other states are much more
recent. Only two states - Colorado and Washington - render marijuana
possession completely legal for people 21 and older.

Even Obama said - in a masterpiece of understatement - the
legalization experiment in those two states "is going to be, I think,
a challenge."

But honestly - what are the costs, both real and hidden, in allowing
the widespread availability of yet another mind-altering drug,
particularly one whose primary form of ingestion is through smoking?

With all the alcohol, prescription pain killers and anti-depressants
already in use (and too often abused), does a society already losing
moral focus and educational acuity really need another legalized drug
that negatively affects the brain?

Another nagging issue: Marijuana still is prohibited under federal
law. Although the Obama administration has been reluctant to enforce
federal law in states where pot has been decriminalized, what about
future administrations? The marijuana debate inevitably will have to
go national.

As an illegal substance, many states dealt with marijuana in a very
simple and straightforward manner: You don't use it, sell it or
possess it. End of story.

But as a legal, regulated product, states will find themselves
addressing a host of public policy issues, including secondhand smoke.
When can you smoke in public? What about smoking at home with young
children in the house? Should blowing psychoactive secondhand smoke in
a house occupied by a child be considered abuse or
endangerment?

Will there be a marijuana "legal limit" when driving a car? That's
important to consider when you realize the drug is detectable in your
system for weeks or sometimes longer.

Or say you're in a public place and you accidentally breathe someone's
secondhand marijuana smoke. You later test positive on a drug screen,
and are penalized for the results, either by law enforcement or your
employer. Who's the real guilty party here?

Laws will be written, debated, passed, enacted and possibly later
changed. It will not be easy, and mistakes will be made. But Georgia
has the benefit of learning from those mistakes likely to strengthen
the argument to keep marijuana illegal.  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D