Pompo

My Turn: Ease marijuana rules at own risk
3/8/08|Burlington Free Press| by John Hilferty - Opinion

Slowly but surely, the progressive forces that control the power in the Vermont Legislature are doing what they can to weaken the quality of life that makes Vermont a unique place to live.

With their support of the marijuana decriminalization bill, their attitude seems to be that smoking pot is such a casual indiscretion there is no harm in letting users have their way with it.

Perhaps this could be added to the legislation: The warning to teenagers that smoking pot is OK, but when your concentration levels fall to the point where your grades in school suffer, or if you are out on your own and can't keep a job, then you should know where your problems have originated.

One of the most persuasive arguments against marijuana use is that teenagers, in particular, learn to avoid stress through the calming benefits of pot. Thus they fail to cope with the challenges of gaining adulthood and become forever locked in arrested development --- inability to focus on school or an occupation.

Marijuana is the swamp where the drug culture breeds. An example of the insidiousness of the practice is Vancouver, British Columbia, a liberal-minded city where marijuana-growing and its use are winked at. The acceptance has led to an influx of criminal gangs competing to control what has become a $7 billion industry in British Columbia. The figures are not mine, but come from The Economist magazine (Feb. 9-15, Page 41), supported with studies by the British Columbia Organized Crime Agency and the Fraser Institute, a think tank.

British Columbia and Vermont have similar attributes of natural beauty. Both rely on tourism, except in the Canadian province, backpacking pot smokers and other drug seekers from all over the world will soon outnumber the skiers and other visitors.

The Economist stated that Vancouver has become Canada's new center for drug-related violence "thanks to its importance as a hub for the production and export of marijuana." Are we witnessing an identical movement in Rutland, where out-of-state drug dealers are flocking to take advantage of Vermont's increasing acceptance?

Here is what Narcanon Vancouver, a drug rehabilitation agency in British Columbia, says about the problem: Soft marijuana laws create fertile ground where "drug pushers produce more drug addicts because of an expanding market into which they can push drugs."

Vermont legislators favoring the soft approach toward marijuana should be made to consider who benefits the most from their actions. According to Narcanon Vancouver, "drug dealers, pot growers incapable of supporting their habit, criminals, pimps, pushers, organized crime, drug companies, opium traders, drug crop land owners are all financially gaining from a product (marijuana) that has but one true result: oblivion, forgetfulness, destroyed ambition, apathy, slow death of an entire future generation."

The Democrats and Progressives who hold the power in the state Legislature consistently ignore reforms central to the state's problems: the need to reduce taxes and promote business, jobs and affordable housing. They can't put aside their time-consuming fixations on laws that strengthen various lifestyle acceptance.

All of us as voters who love Vermont and wish it well should push the majority members of the Vermont Legislature to institute meaningful tax reform, to create jobs through nonpolluting industry and make housing affordable to working families. Focusing on marijuana legislation that can only lead to the destruction of lives is not the way to go.

John Hilferty lives in Moretown.