Clearly, too much alcohol can lead to throat cancer, liver damage, affecting brain cells, etc. Just about everyone knows and accepts that. I had a classmate at age 15 who was killed by a drunk driver. I know the dangers of booze.
I'm a member of the pink lung society - no smoking. My favorite writer (Ayn Rand) was an idiot for smoking like a chimney and claiming that doctors were wrong that cigarettes were dangerous. People shouldn't have needed a surgeon general to realize that sucking on/inhaling something you light with a match (whether a cigarette or a car tailpipe) will ultimately trash your lungs.
Marijuana is arguably more dangerous - in part because of the cultural glamour (where the media will gladly acquiesce). Miley Cyrus and Snoop Dogg and others who connect with the teen culture flaunt their association with weed. There's this weird, giggly-asinine, S&G symbiotic mindset associated with pot, mainly in the teen realm. But then it gets worse.
Teen marijuana use is up, and teen alcohol use is down - there are debates on actual numbers, but marijuana is now the more popular drug. And here's where I take issue with John Ryan's final point - legalizing it may or may not change the pathway to harder drugs.....but it DOES increase the pathway of escalating bad judgment that leads to trouble with the law, injury, or worse.
That Obama turned it into an issue of economic justice (middle class kids get away with it, lower class kids get punished) is an irresponsible evasion. He just refuses to make a strong speech to the youth of America and talk about honor and responsibility to yourself. He doesn't get it and he doesn't know what it's all about. His posse would despise him if he told teens to treat their brain as a temple and not cloud it with anything, ever.
Once, just once, I'd love to see him get tough and send a message along the lines of the Father's Day speech back in 2008 (which was a thing of beauty). Not this amoral existentialist crap. Teens shouldn't be touching the stuff, as medically it's much more toxic to them. Period.
Those are my views, take them or leave them :)
