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Show 'Hang-Up' On Marijuana Law A Washington State Evergreen Editorial There are two major problems in he marijuana laws of this coun-ry: coun-ry: they the neither uniformly ap-lied ap-lied or effective enough to be of my real help. Smoking marijuana may or may lot be physically harmful; that is not at issue here. Experts also report re-port that marijuana is not especially espe-cially addictive and that most users us-ers are not attracted to stronger drugs. The point is that marijuana is socially unacceptable and also highly illegal. And the current anti-marijuana anti-marijuana laws are not doing their job. At present there is no set of anti-pot laws that can be universally univer-sally applied nationwide and effectively effect-ively enforced. Society can never accept a narcotic nar-cotic that affects the mind. This is because mature individuals do not have to turn to mere chemicals to get their "kicks" out of life. The real world should be able to provide any normal person with just as great a "turn on" as any drug. Those who turn to marijuana have been referred to as anything from lacking in imagination to culturally cul-turally deprived. The flight from reality that t h e marijuana side of the tune in, turn on, drop out set raves about is really revealing to an outsider. A first-time user from this campus commented that he found pot to be "mind expanding," that he could feel his clothes touching his body. He also said that when he stood on the railing of a balcony four floors above the sidewalk, there was not feeling of height and he greeted the possibility of falling with indifference. This isn't exactly the type of thinking that society needs to improve im-prove itself. It's hard enough to try to apply reason to Lyndon Johnson's psychedelic foreign policy poli-cy while slightly off your nut on pot. Society may need a change, but the withdrawal of eager new minds is certainly not the way. Why should a person blow his mind on cheap kicks and live in a perpetual state of ecstacy when he can actually improve his world by remaining sane? It is more productive produc-tive and just plain more fun to fight the world than to withdraw from it. Marijuana simply isn't an answer to what's wrong with society. And being able to feel one's own clothes is nice, but it hardly helps society move forward. A better answer is fighting to better the world through legal and socially acceptable methods. meth-ods. Marijuana is neither. Anti-marijuana laws could act as a real determent to society's dropout drop-out problem. But first a uniform series of laws must be implemented and made even more severe for pushrs and repeated offenders. The laws have to be enforcable; viola-ters viola-ters must not be treated lightly. The pot crowd is both morally offensive off-ensive and useless to society. These people should be taught to use their minds, not play with them. |