IF CALIFORNIA GOES TO POT, REST OF U.S. GETS DRAGGED IN

Supporters of legalizing marijuana make interesting arguments about
respecting adults' personal liberty, choking off a major source of
drug cartel profits, and saving law enforcement resources for higher
priorities.

Interesting, but not enough, in our view, to offset the even more
compelling reasons why voters in trend-setting California would be
wise to reject legalization when they go to the polls Nov. 2.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed a law making possession of
up to an ounce of marijuana equal to a traffic ticket, but if
Proposition 19 passed - and polls suggest it has a decent chance -
California would go even further. It would be legal for adults to
possess, smoke and grow pot for recreational purposes.

What's the harm? More than you might suspect.

One key problem is that California, or any other state, can't fully
"legalize" marijuana. It would still be an illegal substance under
federal law, and Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that
he'd make it a priority to arrest and prosecute violators. Not
individual users, most likely, but people who tried to grow or sell
it in large quantities.

Nor would the impact of legalization be confined to the Golden State.
A RAND Corp. study suggests that legalizing California crops would
slash the cost of pot from some $300-$400 an ounce to as little as a
tenth of that, potentially flooding the rest of the nation with cheap
supplies and driving up use.

Even some Californians sympathetic to the idea of legalization worry
that Prop 19 is a flawed vehicle. It would empower the state's
hundreds of city and county governments to set their own regulations
for growing, selling, using and taxing marijuana. That, as most of
the state's leading newspapers have pointed out in editorials
opposing the ballot measure, is a recipe for regulatory chaos.

More worrisome than tangled bureaucracy, though, are concerns about
what legalizing another intoxicant besides alcohol could do to public
safety and health.

Anti-pot crusaders dating to the days of Reefer Madness wrecked their
credibility by insisting marijuana was as pernicious as heroin and
other far more dangerous drugs. It's not, but it's not harmless,
either. Growers have managed to make stronger strains over the years,
and some are powerful enough to induce a blissful sort of catatonia,
at least temporarily.

You wouldn't want someone in that state or even a milder one coming
toward you on the road, and while it would still be illegal to drive
under the influence, that would almost certainly happen more often
under legalization. Marijuana smokers are three times more likely
than sober drivers to crash.

Our deepest concern is what would happen to children. Supporters of
legalization underestimate how easy it would be for kids to sneak pot
at home if their parents began using it more frequently and openly,
and the legalizers fail to reckon with the danger of sending children
the message that pot is no big deal. Marijuana is less addictive than
harder drugs, but the addiction rate jumps as high as 17% for kids
who begin using at an early age, and early use can sharply set back a
child's mental development.

There continues to be a legitimate role for medicinal marijuana,
which can ease pain and suffering in some seriously ill people and is
legal in California and 13 other states. In California, though,
getting a doctor's permission to buy legal pot is so easy that it has
become a back door for broad legalization, which risks creating a
backlash against the drug's compassionate use.

Eventually, there might be a national movement toward legalizing
marijuana, but the key word is "national." Legalization is a decision
that should be made by the entire country, not just one state, and
only after carefully weighing all the very real downside