Pubdate: Fri, 27 Feb 2009
Source: Wausau Daily Herald (WI)
Copyright: 2009 Wausau Daily Herald
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/zFWcSrzy
Website: http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1321
Author: Yvonne Wadinski
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n222.a02.html

LEGALIZING MARIJUANA IS AN INSANE IDEA

Editor: Stop the insanity -- the insanity of believing that smoking
marijuana is not harmful to your health. It is not just "a natural
herbal substance that is much less damaging to your body than alcohol
or tobacco." Maybe in your "pipe" dreams. This is not some wonder drug.

The medical use of smoking marijuana is obsolete; there are plenty of
alternatives that aren't smoked. Why would any creditable doctor
prescribe a treatment that has the added health risks of smoking?
Believe it or not there are health risks in smoking anything.

As for the government wasting their time and taxpayers' money on
keeping it illegal, can you even imagine trying to regulate it? At
least if it stays illegal, there is only one issue, not all the added
problems that would arise if it were legalized. You know it would have
to have some controls to the sale and use of it. Who would be allowed
to grow it? Use it? At what age? Who would be regulating the sale of
it and how would it be taxed? What would the taxes be used for? Who
would be paying for the medical costs of the complications of
long-term use?

So if you want to use marijuana, go ahead, but illegally. I don't want
to have to inhale your secondhand pot smoke. I don't want to have to
worry if you are driving on the same road in an altered state. I don't
want children to believe that just because it's legal it's not
dangerous to their health.

Yvonne Wadinski,

Mosinee
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin