AGAINST MARIJUANA

I'm troubled about recent articles regarding legalizing marijuana.
Wake up and smell the ink on your reality check. If you ingest
marijuana, the bill of self-destruction will come due.

Marijuana is the third most common recreational drug in America,
second to alcohol and tobacco, and is the most commonly abused illicit
drug. Its strength has increased 10 times since the 1970s. One form,
cannabis, contains 400 chemicals.

Nicotine and carcinogens, key components that cause cancer, are found
in marijuana. Its ingestion leads to distorted perception, impaired
coordination, lowered intelligence, and difficulties with memory,
learning, thinking, concentration and problem solving. It also reduces
reaction time while driving. Family, work and school times are affected.

Marijuana can also increase heart rate by 20-100 percent for up to
three hours. Heart attack risk can increase five times within the
first hour. Marijuana smokers typically inhale deeper and retain smoke
longer than tobacco smokers and experience daily cough, chest illness
and lung infections.

Among marijuana's young abusers, it can cause indifference to
homework, impairment in reading, math, concentration and memory, and
lowering of sexual inhibitions. Our brains undergo extensive change
and re-wiring between the ages of 12 and 25. Is it worth the risk?

Nine percent of marijuana ingesters become addicted. That figure
increases to 17 percent among the young and 25-30 percent of daily users.

I will never, and I shout never, try marijuana. I already have
something in me that is 100 percent proof positive - the power of
truth. If my critics label me as blind, then let it be so. What blinds
me is the light of truth.

BRET SNYDER

Hutchinson