Let's drop the crusade against marijuana.
It's a battle we can't win and many Americans support legalizing the drug.
No, that's not my idea. It is the battle cry of many who will probably go to their graves calling for legalized marijuana.

Quite frankly it's rare that I spend much time thinking or writing about national issues.
Shame on me for that. But out of the corner of my eye the other day, I saw a column written by a nationally syndicated columnist Froma Harrop.
Harrop said Mexican drug cartels are polluting national parks with chemicals and scorching them with fires while growing marijuana crops. Armed gangs protect the pot crops making parks unsafe for visitors.

According to Harrop, and I don't doubt her sources of information, federal and state governments are spending $8 billion in a losing war against marijuana and still we can't protect our parks.
"End the ban on pot, and the drug gangs go away," Harrop wrote.
Sure. That makes complete sense.
Once marijuana is made legal, the pot drug lords will turn to respectable, white-collar jobs. Maybe they will lead the fight against breast cancer or world hunger? Maybe they will settle down and bake cookies.

Give me a break! They are career criminals who don't want or probably wouldn't know how to work a real job in this country or in any other.
I think it's far more than reasonable to assume these criminals would simply move onto another form of crime.

What does Harrop think displaced marijuana drug lords would put on their resumes? "I was a pot drug lord but now I am ready to climb the corporate ladder at Home Depot."
If you buy that argument, you might want to sit out with me in the pumpkin patch waiting on the Great Pumpkin this weekend.
Harrop used other arguments for the legalization of marijuana-the same ones most of the pro-pot bunch uses: farmers would have a new cash crop, it has medical benefits and we could tax it.
I think a far better case can be made for legalizing marijuana for medical use though I worry that some proponents of that idea are simply using it as a smoke screen (ha! ha!) to get recreational use more accepted eventually.

But I couldn't get past what appeared to be one of her main if not the main argument for legalizing the drug, the belief it would take away the drug gangs.
I can agree to disagree and I am normally not very opinionated. However, please don't insult what little intelligence I have.

Are there harder more addictive drugs than marijuana? Sure.
But in addition to the impairment marijuana causes on its own, many law enforcement officials believe marijuana is a "gateway" drug that leads to harder and harder drugs.
Many on the other side of the legalized marijuana will debate whether marijuana leads to harder drugs. You can probably sort through your own memory of what happened to some of your friends to form your own opinion on that.

Maybe some of you smoked marijuana at some time in your life and moved on to productive lives.
Good for you, but lots of others haven't.
As I a reporter I sift through dozens of police reports each week.
Paper trails of thefts, assaults and worse pile up on my desk.
Many if not most of them stem from drug use. The problems caused by marijuana use won't go away if the drug is made legal even just for medical use. I think it is well documented the problems many Americans have abusing prescription pain pills.

I don't doubt for a minute this nation is losing the war on marijuana and perhaps other drugs.
But we can't give up or use that as an excuse to stop trying.

tommy.millsaps@advocateanddemocrat.com | 337-7101