Pubdate: Sun, 17 May 2009
Source: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
Copyright: 2009 The Daily Herald Company
Contact:  http://www.dailyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/107
Author: Russell Yohn

THINK ABOUT THIS BEFORE LEGALIZING POT

Before approving any federal legalization of marijuana,  it might be 
well to consider such questions as the  following:

Companies, how would you like to be compelled to employ  drug users 
whose use of marijuana makes them less  productive and more often sick?

Workers, how would you like to be compelled to work  with drug users 
whose marijuana use makes them open to  various mental disorders?

Landlords, how would you like to be compelled to rent  to mentally 
ill and sometimes violent marijuana users,  who often steal to pay 
for their drugs?

Renters, how would you like to be compelled to 
have  marijuana-smoking neighbors, exposing your children to  them 
and their intoxicating smoke?

Those who wouldn't like to do this might consider that  there can be 
no assurance that following any federal  pot legalization, the quite 
justified discrimination  against marijuana users in these situations 
would be  outlawed. Compelled to employ unproductive 
workers,  quality and profits would be seriously reduced, 
forcing  many employers to curtail or end their operations,  throwing 
even productive workers out of work.

The only way to be certain that such an unfair ban of  needed 
discrimination never occurs is to defeat any  federal legalization of 
marijuana (now being  sponsored). State laws for medical or any other 
uses of  marijuana are steps to federal legalization and,  therefore, 
threats of such a possible development.

Russell Yohn

Elgin
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