Pubdate: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp Contact: http://www.denverpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122 Author: John Knetemann Page: 13A KEEPING POT OUT OF KIDS' HANDS During The Denver Post's marijuana forum last Turesday, Gina Carbone of Smart Colorado stated that pot legalization is "going to make raising kids very hard." This claim is not statistically supported. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse released a 2009 study that suggesting children could more readily find marijuana than alcohol. But wait-marijuana wasn't legal anywhere at that time. I thought legalization made it more available to children? No, of course not. Legal industries, like alcohol, have an incentive to ensure it doesn't get into the hands of children. They don't want to lose their liquor licenses. But a black-market drug dealer has absolutely no incentive to keep it out of the hands of a child. What they do is illegal anyway. Legalization helps keep it out of the hands of children, as it takes the industry out of the hands of criminals and into the hands of regulated businessmen. John Knetemann, Aurora - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom