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MARIJUANA MUST BE USED AND SOLD RESPONSIBLY

Marijuana has now been legalized or decriminalized in 17 states and the District of Columbia, with Maryland joining the list just last week.  Not to harsh anyone's mellow, but it may be an appropriate time ( and day ) to bring back another useful verb to associate with marijuana use: stigmatize.

The drive toward legitimization will be hard to stop.  Most Americans favor it, and ballot measures to loosen rules on marijuana use could come to a vote this year in at least five states.  Twenty-one states already allow marijuana for medical use.  What's unhealthy about this trend is that it coincides with a declining awareness of marijuana's dangers - especially among young people.  Less than 40 percent of high school seniors think marijuana use poses a great risk, down from 55 percent in 2003.  Cigarettes are dangerous, more and more adolescents have come to realize, but they don't believe marijuana is.  ( In fact, they're both unhealthy.  )

That they could be so wrong about a drug that more than a third have used makes it clear: In their drive to roll back laws against marijuana, and for the revenue that undoing prohibition would raise, states are inadvertently stoking a serious public health problem.

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