Bishop Ron Allen on Fox and Friends

I am glad that someone other than me agrees with the same idea , that legalizing pot is wrong. I am 53 years old and feel the same way as you. In the 70′s I saw what a lot of my friends went through. This would be a terrible thing for our soceity to say it is ok
Please keep up the good work you are doing, and may God and you prevent these people from getting their agenda through. This is another thing that destroys family and neighborhoods.
Sincerly.
Kevin Wickwire
Cape Coral FL.

The Bishop says "Today the THC level of pot is 37.5%" He is obviously misinformed. Even medical-grade California cannabis does not contain 37.5% THC. The rest of what he says is wrong, too. The NAACP was courageous in supporting California Proposition 19. Prohibition laws are the new Jim Crow.

First and foremost: just because you got addicted to crack cocaine doesn't mean everyone in Cali is going to make your mistake.

It's true that most people going into treatment for drug offenses are there because of marijuana, but I think we can all thank the sometimes mandatory drug treatment penalties enforced largely upon young, minority citizens who are caught with minimal amounts for that.

Also, if it was such a potent gateway drug, why aren't harder drugs like heroin and crack cocaine the biggest suspects in overall statistics regarding drug abuse/rehabilitation treatments? This was a trick question, because it's not a gateway drug.

Do Looser Laws Make Pot More Popular? Not So Far
via NPR

Marijuana use is not on the rise.

At least, that’s the gist of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health done every year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2008 — the most recent data available — 6.1 percent of Americans 12 and older admitted using marijuana in the previous month.

In absolute terms, that number is probably low; after all, this survey asks people to admit to using illegal drugs. But the real significance of the number is that it’s steady — it’s been hovering right around 6 percent since 2002. Drug researchers say the real percentage may be higher, but it’s probably holding steady, too.

And yet, during those same years, marijuana has been edging toward legitimacy. States with medical marijuana laws have made it possible for thousands of people to buy pot over the counter, in actual stores. Some police departments have started de-emphasizing marijuana arrests.

Critics of liberalization believe this inevitably leads to greater consumption.

“It’s axiomatic,” says John Lovell, a lobbyist for California police chiefs. He’s also helping to organize the campaign against an initiative in California to make marijuana legal for adults.

“Anytime you take a product — any product — from a less convenient sales forum to a more convenient sales forum, use increases,” Lovell says.

But cities where marijuana have been liberalized have not seen a spike in consumption, so far. In 2003, voters in Seattle made marijuana the “lowest law enforcement priority” for city police. Researchers tracked the results. Caleb Banta-Green studies drug use trends at the University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute. He says self-reported consumption and pot-related emergency room visits remained flat, before, during and after the initiative went into effect.

Banta-Green says he gets similar reports from drug researchers in other cities.

“I’m not hearing stories on a regular basis that, ‘There was liberalization in marijuana policies, and soon afterwards, usage rates increased dramatically,’ ” he says.

 Now, to those of us who approach drug laws with logic and rationality, this will not be surprising. However, as the article discusses, there is little if any evidence that legalization will increase use. It might even decrease use among school-age kids. Bottom-line is that there is not a single argument this Ron Allen guy made that holds any water at all. Besides, why exactly is he a qualified individual? He is a bishop, not a scientist, journalist or any sort of expert on drugs.

We need to throw a few more trillion dollars at this, give the police even more extra powers and proper weapons like Death-Rays that work on large crowds, take away forever what's left of everybody's rights and liberties, and then indulge ourselves in even more wishful thinking or bizarre pseudo-science before even more druggies try to corrupt and endanger our truly pure and caring society with their evil plants.

So if today's pot is 14 times stronger than in the 60's and "danger" is a function of strength, why wasn't the low-potency variety from the 60's legal?

Oh right! You are not at all concerned with the "danger" (nor could you be, since marijuana cannot cause an overdose death)- you are merely trying to cling to any argument you think can stem the tide of disbelief in the premises of Prohibition.

By the way, if Bishops are experts in addiction medicine and pharmacology, who should I turn to for religious advice??