AlterNet: If Tobacco Regulation Works, Why Not Regulate Marijuana?

[marmar]

If Tobacco Regulation Works, Why Not Regulate Marijuana?

By Rob Kampia, AlterNet. Posted December 24, 2007.

If we really want to control marijuana and keep it away from kids, why not try a method that actually works?




President Bush recently touted new survey results showing a modest drop in teen use of marijuana and other drugs, but he failed to mention the drug for which prevention efforts have had the most spectacular success -- tobacco. If he had, he might have had to make some troubling comparisons.

Citing the results of the annual Monitoring the Future survey, Bush noted that drug use has declined from its recent peak in 1996, but sidestepped the longer-term picture that doesn't look nearly so rosy.

If you go back 15 years, to 1992, drug use is up almost across the board. For example, in 1992, 3.7 percent of eighth-graders were current marijuana users, compared with 5.7 percent in 2007. For 12th-graders, the figures were 11.9 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively.

This contrasts sharply with the figures on adolescent cigarette use. Here, too, there was a bit of a rise in the mid-1990s, but overall, the trend is much more encouraging.

While marijuana use is higher among all age groups than it was 15 years ago, cigarette smoking has dropped remarkably. Among 12th-graders, current cigarette smoking has dropped from 27.8 percent in 1992 to 21.6 percent this year. For eighth-graders, the drop is even more dramatic, from 15.5 percent down to 7.1 percent. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/71504/

[ThomWV]

1. Yeah, right. Cigarettes have been essentially regulated out of existance, pot already is.

[Mel]

2. you got it

and if they did regulate pot it would be sin taxed to death while the top 1% would still get away without paying their fair share in taxes.

[Toots]

3. To me there is no difference between people that smoke cigarettes and people that

deny Global Climate Change...The first one is addicted to nicotine and the second addicted to money and power..Neither is using knowledge to make their decisions..

[The2ndWheel]

4. I'd look forward to the protests against Big Weed

With the various global marijuana corporations that want nothing but profit. The same way Big Wind and Big Solar will be protested if/when they overtake Big Oil. Then we'll wonder how the wind, the sun, and the joint didn't set us free.

[enfield collector]

5. never going to happen

the war on(some) drugs is about people control. no government is going to willingly give up this level of intrusion into the ordinary citizens life or cut off this existing revenue stream.