STRICTER PENALTIES NEEDED TO REGULATE UNPRODUCTIVE 'STONERS'

The Tuesday mailbag had many insightful ideas about marijuana legalization.
Unfortunately, not a single one of them gives a shred of hope for escaping
the age of societal decadence by which we've all become disillusioned. The
fact is that marijuana is not the real issue in this debate at all. The
issue is the effect that marijuana has on its users, who have an effect on
society, which has an effect on everyone.

At this point, I could rattle off about 15 to 20 conclusive statistics to
prove this point, but that would both bore you and deter from my point. (If
you are interested, a simple Google search for something like "drug use"
will yield thousands of viable results.) Violent crime, poverty, abuse,
addictions, depression and anger are among the many direct negative
ramifications of illicit drug use, especially marijuana. The facts don't lie.

The only solution to break the cycle that we're in is not to become less
regulatory but to become more regulatory. In fact, if the penalty of being
caught with marijuana or any illicit substance just one time warranted say,
three years in federal prison and carried a three-strikes-and-you're-out
law, that "high" everyone is looking for wouldn't seem like so much of a
high when they saw the risk and knew the consequences.

Yeah, maybe we'd have to build a lot more prisons and my taxes might
increase, but I'm willing to part with a little bit of money if it means
that the future of America might have fewer drug addicts and broken homes
than educated workers and responsible mothers and fathers.

Does this solution solve the problem? No, but it's not a quick fix like
legalization is and though it may take generations to have an impact on our
lives, it may just save us from the downward spiral we're in. Besides, if
nothing else, I might finally be able to get into the classes that I need
to graduate that are filled up by the stoners who don't go to class anyway.

Jeff Beran

engineering management junior