Pubdate: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2010 Leesa Johnston Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgi Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 Author: Leesa Johnston MARIJUANA'S SAFETY TEMPERED WITH MATURITY With all fairness, marijuana is not as bad as most think. Drinking alcohol is just as bad as smoking weed. You get "drunk" from drinking alcohol and "high" from smoking pot. If alcohol is a legal substance, marijuana should be. The key to both alcohol and marijuana is maturity. Knowing when to do it and when not to do it, when to stop and when to begin. We have alcoholics who drink alcohol and "pot heads" who smoke weed daily; it is the same scenario with a different product. Young people do not have the thought process on how to handle things that alter judgment. Why should one be acceptable in society and not the other? Alcohol was made illegal in the past, only to have created organized crime. If you could look at the number of adults who are successful now, but have smoked marijuana sometime in the past, you would be very surprised. Leesa Johnston, North Richland Hills - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake