Your Voice: Push to legalize pot bad move

First Washington and Colorado, now the push for marijuana legalization has moved to York, Maine. The Marijuana Policy Project is successfully campaigning for the legalization of recreational pot use. Portland voters voted to legalize recreational put use and the Marijuana Policy Project hopes to have the same success in Lewiston, South Portland and York. York selectman opposed the issue being put on the November ballot.

The legalization of Marijuana is not needed in our towns. There are many factors with marijuana use that have a negative effect on our citizens.

Avoiding the legalization of marijuana will help to limit the access the public has which can help prevent addiction to the drug. The use of marijuana creates a dependency and the need to use the drug as a high or escape from reality. The more times marijuana is used, the larger the amount of needed intake will be in each continued use causing a growing amount of pot entering your body. When more and more marijuana is consumed, the harder it becomes to stop or go without the drug causing withdrawal symptoms from the addiction.

The ingestion and smoking of marijuana can lead to mental health issues. It has been proven that when using marijuana a common side effect is elevation in heart rate and blood production rate. Raised heart rate can increase the chances of heart attacks. Marijuana also has effects on brain activity and development in those under the age of 21. Signs also show that marijuana can increase anxiety in adults and teens which can lead to depression and suicidal thoughts.

A negative effect that marijuana has is that it can ruin the lives of substance abusers. There are more marijuana drug arrests than any type of violence in the United States. The arrest can bring anywhere between five to 99 years in jail for just having possession of marijuana. Those who are not being arrested are checking into hospitals. In 2011 there were 129,000 cases of marijuana abusers. Not to mention that the use of heavy marijuana decreased an average of eight I.Q. points from those users that can never be restored.

The selectmen of York, Maine voted to determine whether or not the public should vote on the legalization of marijuana in the local area. States like Washington and Colorado have already had cities legalize marijuana and even Portland, Maine has. Why should the public have the ability to legalize marijuana? Marijuana isn't even legal at the federal or state level, passing it at the town level doesn't mean that it is legal. Passing it in a local town does nothing, you can still either end up in court or in jail because it is still illegal under state law. Towns should only vote to legalize marijuana, after the federal government changes the laws.

If towns want to legalize marijuana, passing these laws on ballots now does nothing for them. If marijuana is to become a legal recreational drug, it needs to go through the federal level first. If the public wants the use of recreational marijuana to become legal, they need to get the States and federal laws changed before it is changed on the local level.

"Why would they pick York? York has a tradition of being a bastion of Republican conservatism." Chairman of the York Board of Selectman, Ron Nowell, had this to say about legalizing marijuana in York, Maine. Nowell stated that it is bizarre for York to be worrying about the legalization of marijuana. Scott Gagnon, Maine Policy Projects Maine Coordinator said on how people view marijuana, "(People think) that it is going to solve all of our problems, but it isn't, it is going to create new problems". They worry about what the message sent to kids will be if marijuana is legalized.