Dear Editor,
Should marijuana be legalized? What are the effects of narcotics use in society today? I’d like to make reference to some important discoveries about marijuana by Dr. Wesley Hall, past president of the American Medical Association, and Dr. Sidney Cohen, a former director of Narcotics Studies at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, and also careful research done by William F. Damkembring in his article entitled, “Marijuana on Trial”.
It is important for the public to know of their research findings. According to them, marijuana is harmful and dangerous and should not be legalized. Those who come to lean on marijuana go on to use stronger drugs. Drivers under the influence of marijuana react like drunken drivers. It affects women as well as men and limits sex drive. Ten percent of children born to mothers who use marijuana will be mentally defective.
Marijuana is dangerous to your heath and causes brain injury in some cases. Blackouts and memory lapses become more frequent among marijuana users, and tend to last longer than people who don’t. Marijuana prolongs the glare in eyes, causing the user to become quickly and completely blinded by oncoming headlights during driving.
Marijuana smoking can cause mental illness, trigger psychosis and murder. It has become a huge business for smugglers and peddlers. The drug is smuggled into the United States from the Mexican border. The illicit drug can be found in almost many countries across the world. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer for those who smoke marijuana and other drugs.
Many people try to find happiness by using marijuana when they are depressed. Some think to smoke marijuana is better than to have a beer or a drink of alcohol. Others suffering from pains and using marijuana as a medicinal cure will explain that the pain will go away for a moment, but the pains will come more frequently.
Marijuana addiction is dangerous and should not be legalized.
Alcoholism: Just like drugs – it wrecks family, ruins health, kills people in many countries. According to William Dankenbring, drunk drivers are responsible for about half the automobile fatalities in the USA each year. They cause over 25,000 deaths each year on highways. People drink alcohol and use drugs to get rid of their worries and problems.
Drunk drivers cause more problems in the world than marijuana users.
Eco-catastrophe is like smoking marijuana – dump fires polluting the atmosphere can produce toxic fumes, also a silent killer if inhaled. Dump fires can produce carbon monoxide and can affect your heath just as marijuana.
Narcotics smuggling makes manufacturers rich. In 1970 opium had a street value of US $225,000 per kilo in the United States. Opium- and heroin-smuggling is a dangerous business. The Golden Triangle – Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Red China – profited from the trade for the years. Modern drug-trafficking between countries has become a lucrative business, but now is a world problem today. In March, 1971 vital statistics indicated the number of addicts around the world per country as follows: Red China, 340,000; United States 200,000; Hong Kong 80,000; Iran 40,000; Puerto Rico 10,000. During that time, those figures were alarming and today double by now.
The problems with drug addicts are they can be treated, but after treatment about 95 per cent of them go back to drugs.
Hard narcotics: Amphetamine – a drug used as an inhalant or in a solution to relieve nasal congestion and asthma; LSD is a chemical that produces mental sickness and delusions; Morphine – a drug made from opium to dull pain and cause sleep, used in medicine; Cocaine is a drug used to deaden pain and used as a stimulant.
In summary: Lack of real purpose is largely responsible for causing young people to turn on with drugs as an escape. Solutions to the drug problems: New education for young people, more skills programs should be introduced; build up ghetto areas; build affordable social homes for citizens; pay decent wages and salaries to workers; educate the affluent in a higher value for a better purpose in life; get rid of ghetto areas; What kind of home is home?
Joseph Harvey
