Word: marijuana
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Today baby-boomer parents who may have smoked pot in college can tell their kids that we know a lot more about marijuana now than we did 25 years ago. We know that it can savage short-term memory and that it adversely affects motor skills and inhibits social and emotional development--just at the time such skills and development are most critical, when kids are in school. We can tell them that smoking pot as a young teen is decidedly more dangerous than beginning at twentysomething. Our research shows that the earlier someone smokes marijuana, the likelier that youngster...
...didn't smoke much dope in the '60s. Pot sent me into giggling fits, and I feared the loss of control. My addiction was alcohol, which was approved by the same Establishment that was bent on criminalizing marijuana. My kids saw that, and they developed an acute sensitivity to hypocrisy. It took me many years to stop drinking and live without such addictions. When I did, that was a better lesson than any words I could have preached to them...
...this experience hardly makes me a neo-Puritan supporter of the continuing war against marijuana users. It's despicable to criminalize and imprison thousands for marijuana possession, while the liquor and tobacco lobbies are destroying so many lives with advertising and campaign contributions. I told my kids that marijuana in moderation for medicinal, ceremonial and recreational use is defensible, especially in comparison with alcohol and tobacco. I also warned them that marijuana has never improved anyone's ability to do homework or hit a curve ball. It infuriates me that my kids, like millions of their generation, are defined...
...children need to hear a clear and consistent no-use message about marijuana--that it is illegal, dangerous and wrong. Research tells us it limits learning, memory, perception, judgment and motor skills, and it damages the brain, heart, lungs and immune system. Marijuana is not a "soft" drug...
RICHARD EVANS BOARD MEMBER OF NORML, THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE REFORM OF MARIJUANA LAWS...