An interesting article in Scientific American says that since legalization of Marijuana in Colorado, the number of high school students who use the drug has gone down. The opponents of legalization claimed that legalization of weed would cause teen usage to increase.
What’s even more interesting is that the percentage of high-school students in Colorado who smoke marijuana is now lower than the national average.
The proponents of prohibition were wrong. The war on drugs failed, and legalization does not necessarily increase usage.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of drugs, but I can’t see any good reason to throw people in jail over them.
5 Comments
When we had our “fresh air” boy from the Bronx, he told us that the dealers held a gun to ones head to get them to take drugs; hence get them addicted.
Sounds like something out of “Reefer Madness“.
Kids do what you don’t want them to do. Since it’s legal, what’s the point?
Nice try, but you have to be 21 years or older in order to legally buy or possess marijuana in Colorado.
Maybe before it was legal, most adults would buy weed from illegal dealers, who would also sell to kids. Now that it is legal, most people will buy it from a licensed store, who will not sell to kids. So that might explain why teen usage has declined slightly. So maybe making it legal actually made it harder for kids to get it!
I agree with legalizing pot. At the end of the day who am I to tell what you can’t put in your body. Personal choice and taking responsibility for ones actions are hallmarks if a free society.