While crowds of exuberant people were lighting joints under Seattle’s Space
Needle, others in Colorado were getting stoned in America’s first marijuana club that
also served Cheetos and Goldfish as snacks. Welcome to the new world of drug
legalization in America. Proponents of legalization believe that soon Oregon and
California will follow the lead of Washington and Colorado.

You would think that in a world with nearly 30 million Americans categorized as
“substance abusers,” the push would be for better enforcement of our drug laws rather
than the relaxation of them. When Nancy Reagan started the “Just Say No” campaign,
and when Bill Bennett became America’s first drug czar, drug use among young people
dropped. By the mid-1990s, that trend went the other way. Perhaps it was due to electing
a president (and subsequent presidents) who admitted to using drugs and alcohol. Perhaps
it was due to changing societal standards. Perhaps it was due to a society that no longer
wanted to say “no.”

Why are people pushing for drug legalization today? Have we concluded that
drug use is harmless? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document that
poisoning was second only to motor-vehicle crashes as a cause of death from
unintentional injury. And nearly all of the poisoning deaths in America are due to drug
poisonings (resulting from the abuse of illegal and prescription drugs). The American
Academy of Neurology documents the negative impact of marijuana use: memory, speed
of thinking, and other cognitive abilities get worse over time.

Drug legalization advocates argue that these new initiatives will increase tax
revenues by bringing drug sales into the open market where drugs can be regulated and
taxed. They fail to account for the skyrocketing social and physical costs from drug use
and drug addiction. Legalization advocates also ignore that, unless drugs are made legal
for children, law enforcement will still have to deal with the sale of drugs to minors.

There is every reason to believe that drug legalization in this country will make
the problem worse, not better. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.