Pubdate: Mon, 27 Jul 2015
Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright: 2015 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/93
Author: Carlis McDerment

PURCHASING MARIJUANA PUTS KIDS AT RISK

As a former deputy sheriff, I know from enforcing senseless marijuana 
laws that children only are being put in more danger when marijuana 
is kept illegal ("Legal pot poses another threat to children," July 8 
letter from Dr. Johanna Said). The term "controlled substance" is 
very misleading.

The goal of prohibiting marijuana was to eradicate its use, but in 
reality, the drug has become infinitely harder for law enforcement to 
control. People like me, and other advocates of marijuana 
legalization, are not totally blind to the harms that drugs pose to 
children. We just happen to know that legalizing and regulating 
marijuana will actually make everyone safer. Merely decriminalizing 
it will do nothing to undercut the dangerous illicit market that is 
currently selling to kids everywhere.

The hospital visits Dr. Said referenced were not because marijuana is 
legal there, per se, but because parents need to be more fully 
educated in how to keep harmful substances away from their kids. Of 
course, children shouldn't ingest marijuana unless a physician has 
legally recommended it. But anyone who suggests we outlaw everything 
dangerous to children would also have to ban stairs, Tylenol, bleach, 
forks and outlet sockets and definitely alcohol. Those things harm 
children every day, but anyone championing that we ban them would be 
laughed at.

I support legalization precisely because I want to reduce youths' 
drug use. Drug dealers don't care about a customer's age. The answer 
isn't prohibition and incarceration; the answer is regulation and education.

We already tried alcohol prohibition and it was a violent 
catastrophe, too. Please don't let Ohio be known as one of the last 
bastions of marijuana hysteria.

CARLIS McDERMENT

Blacklick
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom