THE ENEMY WITHIN

Legalizing Pot Is the First Step on a Short Road to Total Moral Decay

This November, Californians will vote on the future of this country.

And it starts right here in California with the marijuana vote.
Proposition 19 represents more than a misguided effort to
decriminalize "casual" users and make a little money for
cash-strapped California. This is ultimately an ideological struggle
between one way of life, represented by all that's good in America,
and another way of life that stands poised to destroy us from within.

And it all comes down to whether voters think legalizing marijuana is
a good or bad idea.

We've all heard both sides of the debate.

The War on Drugs is a failure. Legalizing pot can generate millions
of dollars worth of needed revenue and eradicate drug-trade violence.

It eases the pain of terminal disease sufferers, plus weed isn't half
as bad as alcohol and tobacco.

However, opponents of the measure claim marijuana is also full of
health risks, drug dealers will still have a market to minors and,
with legalization, a reduction in violence would be minimal.

I'm going to present what should be the only argument for never
legalizing marijuana or any other illegal drug for that matter -- our
children. And here's the litmus test: Would you want your kids
smoking legalized weed?

If you're a privileged teen from a good home and become a long-term
pot smoker, at best you'll be a lazy, overweight disappointment who's
financially supported by your parents until the marijuana exacerbates
whatever underlying personality disorders you have. Then you'll have
your first mental health break, usually during your freshman year of
college, if you even make it to college.

You will drop out, move back home and spend the rest of your days in
and out of psychotherapy, becoming a burden to your family and to society.

Now, picture if you will, an at-risk youth from a low-income
neighborhood in Any City, USA. Throw in a nonexistent or incarcerated
father, a drug-addicted mother with a violence-prone boyfriend,
pressure from street gangs, violent classmates, sexual, physical and
emotional abuse, neuro-psychological issues like ADHD, PTSD, bipolar
disorder, and let this kid get his hands on marijuana. Legalize
marijuana and drug dealers will still thrive, preying on children and teens.

There will still be drug-related violence.

The Mexican cartels will just tweak their operation a little and the
war will continue.

All the so-called taxes that you hoped to raise from the "legalized"
pot will have to be spent on mental health, homeless and joblessness
benefits incurred by the drug users, as well as other medical and
social services.

The problem isn't that the War on Drugs is a failure.

You see, law enforcement held up its end of the war. We did not. If
everyone had done their jobs, law enforcement and the courts would be
just one successful spoke in a wheel of societal success stories
involving parenting, education, empowerment, employment, leadership
and drug and alcohol treatment. But no, we all wanted to sit back and
wallow in collective bad behavior and then point at law enforcement,
as if they were the only group that should have been tasked with
waging a war on drugs, and blame them for the failure, as if they
were supposed to play handmaiden to us all and raise our kids for us
while interdicting drug smugglers.

If we vote to legalize marijuana, we've lost our children forever.

They will never respect you or me as parents or value anything we
ever told them. Our children will think we are all hypocrites and liars.

Our children will shake their heads in shame and say, "How could you
- -- who always taught me to do the right thing and say NO to drugs --
have voted for this?"

Marijuana is the broken window in the "broken window" theory of
neighborhood decay.

It's the first bad decision in an inevitable string of increasingly
worse decisions, because after legalizing pot, legalizing cocaine
won't seem so outlandish, and then methamphetamine. Pretty soon
people committing crime while high on drugs will just "come with the
territory." Then what else will we tolerate?

Outsourcing our protection to armed gangs of narco-criminals, like in
Mexico? Doing away with law and order altogether?

Remember NIMBYs? NIMBY stands for "Not In My Back Yard," and was
usually the reaction by citizens whenever someone wanted to start a
program or build something that that could have a detrimental effect
on a neighborhood.

I'm going to coin a new term here, NIMFAB -- Not In My Flesh and
Blood. And I'm going to stand up and be counted as the first official
NIMFAB. I have an intelligent, kind-hearted, patriotic, religious and
beautiful 9-year-old daughter who believes in giving back to her
community and helping people.

She already knows what college she wants to go to and what she wants
to do for a career. I'll be damned if I'm going to give up and
surrender to legalized marijuana or any other legalized craziness.

And I'm not going to sit around and watch a bunch of dopers tear this
great nation apart.

I'm going to rail against this and stand up for what's right.

I'm going to do it for my daughter, and for all of her awesome
friends, and for all of our children.

Because I'm not willing to sacrifice a whole generation of our young
people so that pot smokers can be "decriminalized" or so that
California can raise money.

Not drug money!

Not ever. Legalizing marijuana is the first step to the social and
moral decay of the United States, and that is a bad idea.