U.S. COULD BENEFIT FROM LEGALIZATION

Let's talk about pot.

It has been high (snicker) on many newspapers' priority lists in the raging
debate over medicinal marijuana. It's a major social issue, and it doesn't
seem to be going away any time soon.

I have a simple solution: legalize it.

Not just for medicinal use, either. Sell it in gas stations, offer it in
grocery stores, sell it in quarter sacks or by the pack, whatever. Let the
college kids, business executives, doctors, lawyers, politicians and
everyone else who already smokes the stuff do so without the fear of jail time.

Only please, can we get over the mentality that smoking pot is on par with
using cocaine and heroine?

No one has proven marijuana is physically addictive. It can be
psychologically addictive, but so can just about anything else --
peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, for example. That doesn't make you a
less contributing member of society.

Look at Holland, where marijuana is legal and available in coffee shops.
There are lower rates of marijuana use in that country than in America,
according to both the Center for Drug Research at the University of
Amsterdam and the National Dutch Institute of Health and Addiction.

Also, there is no evidence that marijuana is a "gateway drug" for any other
reason than most people go to drug dealers to get it. Of course dealers are
going to offer pot buyers more, harder, drugs. It's good business.

I challenge anyone to show me conclusive research that links smoking pot
with an increased likelihood to try narcotics.

Is smoking pot good for you? No, of course not. Anytime you roll weed into
a tube of paper, light it on fire and purposefully breathe the smoke, it's
going to harm your body.

But is it worse than cigarettes, which are addictive? More to the point, is
it worse than alcohol, which is also an addictive legal drug?

The double standard in our society's acceptance of alcohol use and
rejection of marijuana is the greatest justification for legalization.

You can die from drinking too much liquor. It happens all the time. It is
impossible to overdose on marijuana.

Yes, pot impairs your decision making ability. You can drive under the
influence and kill yourself or someone else. You can sleep with the wrong
person, or make bad money decisions, all because you were high at the time.

But all of those dangers are no different than the risks involved while
drinking alcohol. Yet, for some reason, pot is illegal while liquor is
accepted.

You can go to college and binge drink all you want.

Get caught with a joint in your pocket, however, and you are no longer
eligible for federal student aid.

It is proven in downtown Athens every weekend that alcohol and violence
often go hand-in-hand. But when is the last time you heard of someone
getting stoned and starting a fist fight?

You can grow up to be a successful business person who pays taxes, owns a
home, works hard and has a strong bourbon and water every day after work,
and no one cares.

Get caught with a pipe in your hand instead of a rocks glass and you can
lose you job, your kids and end up with jail time.

Do you want get rid of the national deficit? Legalize pot, sell it in gas
stations and tax it like crazy. A report by a professor of economics at
Boston University, published in August of last year, estimated the state of
Massachusetts could raise at least $16.9 million a year by taxing the legal
production and sale of marijuana.

Not to mention the millions of dollars the government stands to save by
legalizing pot. That same report estimated a savings of $120.6 million in
state expenditures on law enforcement, judiciary and incarceration costs --
and that is only in one state.

Imagine the national implications. How much could be used to balance the
budget, help health care or save social security?

I have no doubt that marijuana, one day, will be legal in the United
States. The only question is how long it will take this country to dismiss
the after-school special mentality that insists pot is on the same level as
crack cocaine, or that getting high is any different than tying one on at a
football game.

However, until our parents' generation loosens its paranoid grip on
national drug policy, it looks to be a long haul.

In the meantime, I think I'll have a drink.

- -- Dave Marck Jr. is a senior from Athens majoring in Journalism