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State Should Adopt Legal Limit for Pot
Editorial Board | The Exponent | 10/05/2006

Many studies and statistics show that the effects of alcohol are more harmful, both short- and long-term, than those of marijuana. Organizations like Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, or SAFER, are attempting to make marijuana laws comparable to alcohol laws.

Short-term marijuana use is statistically proven to be less harmful to a person than short-term alcohol use. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a person who uses marijuana will experience problems with memory and learning, distorted perception and a loss of coordination. Even though these effects are harmful, they are the same no matter how much marijuana a person uses in a given day.

Depending on the amount of alcohol consumed by a person in a day, he or she will experience very different side effects. For example, a person who consumes one to four ounces of alcohol in an hour will be more talkative than normal, whereas a person who consumes 16 to 30 ounces in an hour can become comatose or even die, according to the book "Buzzed: the straight facts about the most used and abbused drugs from alcohol to ecstasy." The book also says that people can die from consuming a high concentration of alcohol in a short period of time because the alcohol suppresses the parts of the brain that control breathing. This is also why a person who has had too much to drink can pass out.

The purpose of SAFER is to, "educate the public about the simple fact that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol," according to its Web site. The organization works with universities around the country in an attempt to reduce marijuana penalties.

Indiana should work with SAFER to adopt a legal limit for marijuana possession. The proposed limit is "... making legal the possession of one ounce or less of marijuana for any person 21 years of age or older."

Since Indiana has a legal limit for alcohol, .08 blood alcohol content, it should also adopt a legal limit for a drug that is statistically less harmful short-term.

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