Pubdate: Sun, 19 Jun 2016
Source: Nevada Appeal (Carson City, NV)
Copyright: 2016 Nevada Appeal
Contact:  http://www.nevadaappeal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/896
Author: Guy W. Farmer
Note: Guy W. Farmer worked on anti-drug programs in seven foreign 
countries during his diplomatic career.

HERE COME THE DRUG LEGALIZERS - AGAIN

I'll say this for the drug legalizers: They're persistent. Once 
again, for the third time in the past 10 years, the usual suspects 
are back in Nevada with an initiative petition to legalize 
"recreational" marijuana in the Silver State.

We defeated them twice before on 60-40 votes and I hope we hand them 
another well-deserved setback in November. Led by the Washington, 
D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), and financed by people 
like left-wing radical George Soros, fast-talking potheads will try 
to convince Nevada voters recreational marijuana would be good for 
our state. Not satisfied with so-called "medical" marijuana, they 
want to push the legal drug boundaries even further.

Not so fast, say a number of respected Nevadans and community 
organizations like Join Together Northern Nevada (JTNN) in Reno and 
Partnership Carson City here in the capital city. I applaud their 
efforts to supply Nevada voters with facts about legal marijuana. 
Back in April District 40 Assemblyman "P.K." O'Neill, a career law 
enforcement officer, urged local voters to just say "No" to Ballot 
Question 2, which would legalize recreational marijuana.

"I've lived in Nevada half my life," O'Neill said at a Partnership 
Carson City-sponsored event. "I do not want a state that takes the 
slippery slope" of drug legalization. He said his 40 years in law 
enforcement showed him the dangers of drug abuse and urged those in 
attendance to speak out against Question 2. "I'm running into drugs 
constantly," said Craig Lagier, a chaplain with the local Sheriff's 
Office. "Every single one of the drug abusers I talk to started with 
the recreational use of marijuana."

Kathy Bartosz, executive director of Partnership Carson City, said 
kids are receiving mixed messages about marijuana. "When (kids) see 
marijuana sold as medicine, they think it's good for you." Perhaps 
she was thinking about the "Girl Scout Cookies" brand of medical 
marijuana (this is medicine?) - a little something for the kids. Ms. 
Bartosz, Mayor Bob Crowell and Sheriff Ken Furlong also warned about 
growing prescription drug abuse in Carson City.

"Out-of-state pot industry promoters are pouring millions of dollars 
into Nevada to legalize recreational marijuana in our state," wrote 
Jim Hartman, a Genoa attorney who's president of Nevadans for a 
Responsible Drug Policy. "This initiative isn't a Nevada-based 
libertarian 'live and let live' effort to permit limited backyard 
marijuana grows," he wrote in an Appeal op-ed column. "The taxes 
generated from marijuana sales under this initiative would be totally 
consumed by the bureaucratic costs of legal pot administration run by 
state government."

Hartman added Colorado's legal "pot sales haven't covered the 
regulatory overhead," and said that state has experienced "an 
alarming growth in underage marijuana use." He cited products like 
"Pot Tarts" and "Pot Gummy Bears" that appeal to children. Meanwhile, 
Dr. Greg Juhl, a Reno-based emergency room physician, wrote a 
newspaper op-ed column pointing out "marijuana these days is the 
product of a multi-million-dollar business where plants are selected 
to concentrate THC, the ingredient that gets a user high, and 
minimize CBD, the ingredient that might actually have some medicinal use."

"Even more frightening, the deleterious effects of marijuana seem to 
be most pronounced in children including lower high school completion 
rates and lower IQ," Dr. Juhl continued. "Big Marijuana is selling us 
a bill of goods that plays on emotion, politics and misinformation."

Sheriff Furlong spoke out against Question 2 in April. "Marijuana can 
be as harmful to society as any drug," he said. "Meth, marijuana, 
heroin, burglary, theft, home invasion - they're all synonyms of each 
other." Thanks, Sheriff. Well said!
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom