Legalize Marijuana?

I used to favor the legalization of marijuana in America. I've never been any sort of pot smoker myself and neither are most of my friends. I wasn't advocating for this legalization so that me and my friends could have "more fun" legally. I just felt that science indicates that marijuana really is on a similar level as alcohol and America had a double standard to be comfortable with the use of alcohol but not marijuana.

I wanted taxation on pot. I wanted to know that marijuana is free of being laced with any harder drugs. I wanted age restrictions and driving under the influence restrictions like we have to ensure responsible intoxication with alcohol. I thought that maybe legalizing marijuana would actually benefit American society.

I wasn't alone. Obviously. Here is a popular sandwich shop (designed to help you with your munchies) that you can find in college towns across the Rocky Mountain Range dedicated to the "glories" of marijuana:




What's funny is that I believed that marijuana should be legalized UNTIL I actually encountered legalized marijuana in action a year and a half ago in Amsterdam.

"Hey... I can sell you this... uh... magazine? All day, when I was your age, I used to sit in the coffee shops [marijuana shops] and smoke. It made me stupid. Now, this is the only job I can get. Selling these magazines. But... hey... on page 14 you will see a list of the top coffee shops in the district.... you know, if that's what you're here for."

A middle-aged homeless man made his living downtown Amsterdam selling these Amsterdam magazines to tourists. He obviously was who he was because he had such easy access to marijuana growing up in Holland. However, he knew that Amsterdam is the Las Vegas of Europe. People are there to party in a way that is completely illegal everywhere else in the modern world.

Being a good Christian girl, I was actually naive enough to not recognize the smell of burning pot, but when there's a coffee shop on every corner, the "smell of Amsterdam" is one that I now find drifting across certain dark corners of America on a regular basis.

My friends I met in Amsterdam told me about what the legalization of pot REALLY meant for the community.
-Yes. It increased tourism to the city. But not the type of tourists that Dutch citizens really wanted infecting their charming town. People LIVE and RAISE FAMILIES in these places where tourists were behaving at their absolute worst.
-Yes. Drugs are regulated by the government to prevent abuse. One example was that a business was prohibited from selling both marijuana and alcohol because the Dutch government knew that could be a deadly combination.
-Mushrooms and other "light" drugs were also available for purchase at these coffee shops, but not for long. Too many hallucinating tourists were jumping out of top story windows under the influence. It appeared at though the government was saying "oops, let's cut back on our liberal ways a bit here" due to all the deaths associated with these incidents.
-Regular pot smokers were frying their brain cells at a young age becoming unable to contribute positively to society in their later years. They became just a leech on society.
-The Dutch government was proactively adding many new regulations on the usage of marijuana in the country. It appeared as though they were attempting to undo the original extreme tolerance approach. It looked like they also regretted their approach to legalizing coffee shops. But how can you ever be taken seriously as an enforcer if you were too passive in the first place?

Ok, you may be thinking, Talitha, people all around the world have access to these drugs and behave in the same sort of way that you witnessed in Amsterdam. At least in Holland they're not having to hide.

Obviously, certain people are going to smoke pot no matter how legal/illegal it is. However, I know that for ME, if it's illegal, I won't touch it. But, a legalized substance, I'll at least give it a try. And there are a lot of people like me out there who respect the law enough to avoid begin using marijuana as long as it remains illegal.

I walked away from Amsterdam sad. I felt that this society was suffering from it's radical tolerance. I desired for people to be attracted to Amsterdam for its charm and beauty, not its decadence and depravity. I felt like Amsterdam had the completely wrong reputation. In your mind, you may think of this when you hear the word "Amsterdam"



But, I walked away from Amsterdam with images of this beautiful place




Maybe we can't just trust everyone in our society to maturely handle themselves in the presence of marijuana. Maybe extreme tolerance results in extreme irresponsibility. Maybe we all need a reminder of what's good for us... with the threat of punishment if we ignore that suggestion.

Thoughts?