But I still think we need to reform our laws regarding marijuana. Put laws in place that help prevent minors from obtaining the stuff (set the age limit at 21 [just like alcohol], card everyone, and enforce a DOUBLE penalty [to that of alcohol] for those that sell marijuana to or purchase marijuana for a minor).
Well I think the reason is because just like with Alcohol there are laws in place to prevent anyone from under the age of 21 from buying and possessing, but no law can prevent someone under the age from consuming. Tobacco laws were put on the books years ago too preventing those under the age of 18 from smoking? How many teens do you know, know about or even seen that are still smoking? The same can even be said of marijuana right now. Laws just create a consequence if you habitually break them over and over. In most states possession of small amounts of marijuana is a misdemeanor.
I think the bigger question here is why does anyone need to use marijuana outside of a legal prescription to begin with? We know that marijuana has some clear cut medical use, but in speaking with MD's and many others in the medical professional I can tell you that what they would prescribe isn't a bag of marijuana and some rolling papers.
I think often times the medical marijuana argument is just an attempt to try to get marijuana legalized, which is a whole other argument all together. But when you get in to folks growing it and taxing it, that is basically legalization and you started this topic off talking about medical marijuana. Those two things are not the same!
I can also tell you that as an addition professional that marijuana isn't physically addicting, but it is mentally addicting (habit forming). People use it because it changes the way they feel and long term use not only has medical consequences, but changes brain chemistry. Most people really aren't very well education about marijuana. They have used or tried it and it seems pretty tame even when compared to Alcohol, so they think hmm this should be legalized too. I personally would have no problem with them legalizing it, but then you just have another legal substance out there like alcohol, like tobacco that we know people will use regardless of the harmful and negative impact to their lives. The sad part is it doesn't just impact the individual, but the family as a whole, but in most cases this would only apply to addicts. Are their social marijuana users? Yes just like there are social alcohol drinkers? Now I don't know very many social nicotine users, because in my experience most of them are full blown addicts just using a legal very addicting substance. But we shy away from that because Tobacco is big business in America, though they have paid a lot of money out in recent years for so many people with heath problems and for all the years they lied and said it wasn't a drug and it wasn't addicting.
We've become a society that thinks we are suppose to ALWAYS feel good, never feel bad, never feel down and if we do, then there must be one of those little round things we call pills or a bottle of or something we can smoke to make us feel better. Well I hate to break it to folks, but feeling bad and feeling sad are normal and don't require a fix. Those things will usually pass unless you have a real medical or mental health issue.
I could go on and on, but you get the point. I just think this needs to be thought out and a decision made by people that really know all the facts about marijuana and not just what they believe or heard. Most of that is BS.