Legalizing recreational weed is enabling trouble

By: Amanda Crocket

Dear Editor,

I am writing as a member of Mr. Winkel’s sixth hour American Literature: 1940s to Today class. A topic I feel strongly about is stopping the legalization of marijuana. After recently reading Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” it has inspired me to take action against this.

Many kids nowadays think it’s cool to go out and smoke weed instead of doing something that would help their lives.They do it for many different reasons, including that they think it’s cool because they heard it in a song or see people doing it on television, they give in to peer pressure from their friends or older family members, or they use it as an escape from their problems at home or school.

But these shouldn’t actually be reasons to use this drug. There are other ways to deal with problems at home, and we shouldn’t give into something like this, and if we feel like our friends are pressuring us, then they aren’t good friends in the first place. As Dr. King wrote, we can’t put this off until later: “Now is the time for action.” We need to put forth a bigger effort on trying to stop the legalization instead of the other way around.

Why would anyone want to legalize this so their kids can have more access to it? Yeah, they already have access, but we should try and stop that instead of giving more freedom with it. Some kids don’t do smoke weed because of the fact that it’s illegal, and they are scared of getting caught with it or ruining their lives with it, but if it becomes legal, then they aren’t going to see the harm in doing it and are going to start.

Many pot smokers will say that it isn’t harmful, but studies have shown it is. According to research published in several psychiatric journals, teenagers who smoke pot heavily find it harder to learn, get worse grades and are less likely to finish high school or college. Those who want to change the laws aren’t seeing the big picture. As King said, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people with ill will.”

People are hard headed and don’t believe that no good can come from this at all. Not only can smoking weed harm you, but it can also harm others because kids driving while high are extremely dangerous.

As Dr. King wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” He’s saying that we are all connected and so by people having more freedom to smoke marijuana, it will affect everyone in some sort of way because it is not safe for anyone.

There is not a good enough reason, or a reason at all for that matter, on why marijuana should be legalized besides for medical purposes, but it should only be used for that and not recreationally.

Respectfully,

Amanda Crockett

CFHS junior