Well-said letters about harms of pot

Below are three letters printed in the opinion section of a newspaper:
Three votes against legal pot
Re: Follow In America’s Footsteps, Jan. 21.
    The article fails to disclose the truth about the dangers of marijuana and the consequences of legalizing it. To merely “tax and regulate cannabis” does not stop the violence associated with the drug trade, but opens the door to even higher levels of crime and violence as it does not stop the profit motivation of drug traffickers.
In 2010, the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that 51.8% of Americans used alcohol, 27.4% used tobacco and 8.9% used illicit drugs. The same high figures for alcohol and tobacco use will also apply to marijuana, if legalized.
    There is a wide disparity between tax revenue received from alcohol and tobacco sales and the health costs caused by their use. It results in greater economic and social costs to society because of the increased health care and enforcement, as well as loss of productivity in the workplace. The article also overlooks the dark side of marijuana use. It is a mood-altering drug capable of producing dependency. Adverse effects have been documented in terms of memory, learning, behaviour and functioning.
C. Gwendolyn Landolt, national vice-president, REAL Women of Canada, Ottawa.
.......................................
    Pursuing a “progressive drug policy” (i.e., legalizing marijuana) is all well and good, but there is a downside.
    Last Sunday, I was out for my weekly hockey game when someone in the neighbourhood decided to light up. Those of us on the ball hockey court paid the price, as I was coughing and choking, and felt a bit headachy. And this is while pot is still technically illegal. What happens after legalization? I’m all for freedom, but other people’s freedom to smoke should, I think, stop at the tip of my nose. Secondhand tobacco smoke is bad enough, but pot smoke? Who will protect us from this?
Sheldon Goldfarb, Vancouver.
.....................................
    Those who support the decriminalization/legalization of marijuana claim that the “war on drugs” has been an abject failure, but has it been? Are there more or less people smoking up today as a result of said war? We can’t know. The real question is: Will I be inhaling more or less second hand pot at the bus shelter after prohibition is lifted? The answer seems rather obvious. And after pot, then what? The one thing that is certain, in both politics and a society’s slide into moral decadence, is that one thing invariably leads to another.
Jeff Willerton, Airdrie, Alta.
Source:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/23/todays-letters-when-hunting-the-taliban-go-ugly-early/