Save Our Children by Legalizing: Marijuana Speech #30

30th speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 5-1-2012; 

Honorable Commissioners:

          Last week, I returned to the subject of legalizing marijuana and other drugs.  Commissioner Reedy, you refused a copy of my speech and answered me in Matters from Commissioners.  Thank you for arguing.

          Your remarks boiled down to the fact that you couldn’t understand why I am so concerned about weeds and not about saving our children from drugs.  I didn’t say a word about weeds; I did decry disorder and say that police should be more concerned with catching thieves and getting people to clean up their properties than with keeping us up on the latest teenage slang.

          Why are the cops concerned with teenage slang?  Because the kids are using and selling illegal drugs.  Our laws that supposedly protect children by allowing higher penalties for selling to children and lower penalties for children generally, make children our street dealers.  They can’t even get a job until they are 16; they often start dealing drugs and making big bucks long before that.  They get hooked on easy money and don’t get real jobs.  By the time they are in their mid-twenties, they couldn’t get a job if they wanted to, having no work experience to put on a resume, and they can’t rent a place, because they have no pay stubs.  They are trapped in the black market.

          I have seen this happen to too many kids.  Mothers marched against Prohibition because their kids were getting drunk.   Our kids are getting high and dealing.  We have wasted 3 generations of entrepreneurs on the black market since Nixon declared War on Drugs in the 70’s, pushing up prices faster than inflation. 

          Our black market in marijuana has collapsed in recent years, thanks to medical pot; the only place one can get high prices is out of state or in tolerated dispensaries, selling to people with cards but no grower.  I used to tell people who asked me where to get pot to ask any scruffy kid.  Now the scruffy kids are asking me.

What’s a dealer to do when his drug of choice is no longer profitable?  He moves on to harder drugs.  Soldiers are coming back from Afghanistan hooked on heroin, and getting opiates for their injuries.  Kids are selling to them and each other.  Overdoses are rising among young adults.

          To protect our children from dealing drugs, we need to legalize all drugs, starting with marijuana.  We are collecting signatures to put marijuana under essentially the same regulation as liquor.  Please support the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, now petitioning for the fall ballot.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com