MOVEMENT FOR LEGALIZED MARIJUANA IGNORES DANGERS

Proponents of marijuana legalization often argue it will do everything
from fixing our economy to ending violent crime ("Marijuana
legalization bill offers safer alternative," Tennessee Voices, Aug.
15). Yet, the science is clear: Marijuana use is not a benign drug and
it is harmful to public health and safety.

Decades of scientific study, including research from the prestigious
National Institutes of Health, show marijuana use is associated with
addiction, treatment admissions among young people, fatal drugged
driving accidents, and visits to emergency rooms. Data also reveal
that marijuana potency has almost tripled in the past 20 years. This
is especially troubling for use among teens because the earlier a
person begins to use drugs, the more likely they are to develop a more
serious abuse and addiction problem later in life.

Would marijuana legalization make Tennessee healthier or safer? One
needs to look no further than Tennessee's current painful experience
with prescription drug abuse. In Tennessee, prescription drugs are
legal, regulated, and taxed - and yet rates of the abuse of pain
relievers in the state exceed the national average by more than 10
percent.

Nationally, someone dies from an unintentional drug overdose - driven
in large part by prescription drug abuse - on average every 19
minutes. What would America look like if we had just as many people
using marijuana as we currently have smoking cigarettes, abusing
alcohol, and abusing prescription drugs? The bottom line is that laws
that control substances have had a real and lasting effect on keeping
drug use rates relatively low. They keep prices higher which helps
hold use rates relatively low. Moreover, other addictive substances
like alcohol and tobacco, which are already legal and taxed, cost much
more in social costs than the revenue they generate.

This isn't to say that we believe we can arrest our way out of our
nation's drug problem. In fact, President Obama's new National Drug
Control Strategy emphasizes drug education, treatment and innovative
criminal justice programs, like the Davidson County Drug Court run by
Judge Seth Norman, which diverts hundreds of nonviolent drug offenders
into treatment instead of prison.

Another example is Tennessee's The Next Door program, which reduces
recidivism among women by helping them stay off drugs and transition
back into society after incarceration. These kinds of evidence-based
approaches to drug control are vital to reducing drug use and its
consequences in communities across Tennessee.

Marijuana legalization would be disastrous public health policy,
because it would increase availability and increase the use of a
substance that we know to be harmful. Decades of experience have shown
that there are no "silver bullet" approaches to addressing our
national drug problem. We hope you'll join us in educating every new
generation of young people about the harms of drug use and how it can
endanger their ability to live to their full potential.