In legalizing alcohol, we may have removed the crime syndicate from the mix, but the initial problems associated with it remained and grew. Alcoholism remains a big problem in America, and many people who don't use it are injured and killed by those who do each year. The way I see it, we negotiated with the users and got the bad end of the deal. The jails are now full of wife and child beaters, DUI arrestees, Drunk and disorderly arrests, Manslaughter, and many other manifestations of crime born out of the use and abuse of alcohol that when taken in aggregate, dwarf the magnitude of fighting the underworld.

But you are assuming that during the prohibition of alcohol that these problems went away. They didn't. And also you assume that just because alcohol was involved in a crime means that alcohol caused the criminal behavior. Furthermore, marijuana nowhere aggrevates behavior like alcohol does. Criminal activity follows marijuana only because of the criminal activity surrounding its black market distribution. Unless you have a "medical" license, the more you smoke, the more likely you are to be close to other criminal activity.

Again, remember the dispensaries. The "medical marijuana" dispensaries are nothing more than a place to sell pot to people with a license to get stoned. Does anyone dispute this? The "medical marijuana" dispensaries have been around for a long time now and we have a fixed population of regular pot smokers who buy as much as they want, any time they want and smoke as much as they want any time they want. If smoking marijuana was such a social hazard like alcohol, then we would be seeing a plague of problems that could easily be traced to the dispensary customers. If anything, the dispensaries have served to isolate users from criminal activity, even when their money goes into the pockets of organzed crime.

Think of countries in the world who have outlawed alcohol, mostly Muslim countries. Would anyone describe these countries as temperate countries, where people live peacably and morally advanced lives. If anything the state has assumed the role of a gangster, imposing cruel and sick punishment on people for the most trivial of crimes.

But even acknowledging that alcohol is a hazardous drug does not impune marijuana. Marijuana is a relatively safe drug compared to alcohol, this is indisputable. If anything we should legalize marijuana, while at the same time further restrict the distributiion of alcohol. I would support this. In many ways, the end of the prohibition of alcohol is incomplete. We need a comprehensive reorganization of our whole strategy of combating all of the socially hazardous vices like alcohol, marijuana and tobacco too.

Saying yes, won't keep it out of the schools! Crap kids sneak in booze too. And cigarettes and porn at times. This would make it easier to sneak it from their parents, or what ever. I've buried several who died at an early age to this stuff, mixed with other stuff, so like Rimo, no one can budge me on this. I don't know what will be the outcome, but it will sure dumb down our children. Even adults. Pot can be addictive. Let the doctors give it out to those that need it, and that will control it.

Do you have teenagers in school?

Your right on Ayatolla.

If kids are sneaking cigarettes, alcohol and pornography into school, then criminalizing marijuana to keep it out of schools makes no sense. It doesn't work for alcohol, cigarettes and pornography, then why should anyone expect it to work for marijuana? Why should we create an entire legal system to do something that it never is going to do?

Get rid of the prohibition of marijuana. Put police back to work doing real police work and leave the policing of children where it belongs -- their parents.

I was a teenager in school. I saw marijuana in the schools. I saw people dealing it in school. And the whole lure of dealing the stuff was the black market prices. It was easy money made by people with no sense or brains.

Maybe we should legalize, guns, and all bad things so that the world will be a better place. There have been drugs in schools since I was in school and gangs also. I have witnessed the evil this stuff brings. Families detroyed. And even if it was cheaper, would that stop the addicts from stealing less money from their parents or family? I think not!

Yes, there are many lives ruined by drugs, and that includes marijuana. Marijuana is capable of ruining your life. I've seen people smoking marijuana who should not have been doing it. Not even a little bit, and they were doing it a lot. They would get up in the morning, get stoned, and then get stoned at lunch, then dinner and then go to bed stoned. It happens. Even though marijuana is not addictive, marijuana is capable of ruining your life.

But meanwhile, we have an entire population of users who get stoned legally because they have a license to get stoned from a medical doctor. If you are opposed to legalization, then you must be opposed to the so called "medical marijuana" dispensaries. Getting marijuana from the dispensaries is not medicine, even though doctors are involved. "Medical marijuana" is not a prescription. When you get a prescription, the doctor limits how much you get and how long you get it for. With a prescription, you can buy only so much and just once and when you run out, you have to go back to the doctor and get another prescription.

But with "medical marijuana", you have a life time license to buy it whenever you want for as much as the dispensary will sell you and you can use as much as you want, any time you want. Medical doctors have made this possible and the rot in our medical establishment that this represents deserves another discussion. But meanwhile, it is to marijuana's credit that as rotten as this is, it has not been a total disaster. There are millions of people out there getting stoned regularly and there is no evidence that it is doing anyone any medical or social harm.

But there is considerable evidence that the "medical marijuana" dispensaries are contributing to organized crime. There is no accountability from the dispensaries to the public about where the marijuana comes from and where the money goes. And the dispensaries are charging black market prices.

If you are opposed to the general legalization represented by Proposition 19, then you must be opposed to the "medical marijuana" dispensaries. Since you must be opposed to the dispensaries, then what do you propose to do about them? If there are so many people rationally opposed to Proposition 19, then where is the political movement to get rid of the dispensaries?

And finally guess who is also opposed to Proposition 19? Why the "medical marijuana" dispensaries themselves. That's right, they are opposed to Proposition 19. Why? Because they know that yes on Proposition 19 means the end of the "medical marijuana" dispensaries. With legalization, nobody will need some kind of bogus doctor's license to get stoned and nobody will need to pay black market prices for some stupid plant.

We need to take our country back from the gangsters who are polluting our society with black market profits. Vote yes on Proposition 19.

Whenever you post a quote from somebody else, out of respect for the source of the quote, you always need to at least explain where you got it from and, even better, provide a link.