Pubdate: Sat, 23 Apr 2016 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 2016 Globe Newspaper Company Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340 Website: http://bostonglobe.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52 Author: Robert Shuman MARIJUANA'S FOES TAKE CONFUSED APPROACH TO PROTECTING KIDS I have worked for more than 40 years as a psychotherapist with several thousand teens and adults confronting a variety of personal, marital, and family challenges. I find the argument raised by those who oppose legalizing marijuana for adults - that it would "put our children at risk" - to be confusing and shortsighted ("Key players join forces against marijuana," Metro, April 14). When kids want alcohol, they usually find some willing adult to buy it for them from a local liquor store. If teens want to use marijuana, on the other hand, that moves them toward somebody who has access to a wider range of more dangerous drugs. If it were legalized, I assume most kids would obtain it as they now get alcohol, and their contact with more dangerous drugs would be potentially limited. Yes, I have seen kids who abused marijuana. But I have seen many more teens and adults who had difficulties with alcohol, cigarettes, drinks loaded with sugar and caffeine, prescription drugs, sex, video games, and cellphone use. We know little of the long-term effects, on the brain and behavior of the developing child and adolescent, of pixelated screens, texting, sexting, Googling rather than thinking, gaming, one-click shopping, and enmeshment in the social media web. Yet relatively few people object to the proliferation of stores selling cellphones or their use by younger children. The prohibition of legal adult marijuana has gone on far longer than that against alcohol, despite marijuana's far greater safety and the economic benefits it would provide to enhance education and combat opioid addiction. Robert Shuman Marblehead - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom