Some answers to your questions

In reference to Ms. Winnie Atalig’s letter to the editor to Mr. Ambrose Bennett, I could not help but throw in my opinion about you questioning the difference between marijuana and tobacco, etc. Statistic shows that alcohol has taken so may lives in the past five years. Tobacco and other drugs have taken so many lives in the past five years. Statistics, however, show that marijuana has taken zero lives in the past 50 years. Nobody has overdosed on marijuana. I mean, you do the math.

Like what Mr. Bennett mentioned in his letter to the editor, drugs are medically defined as a substance of which something is made (by man) that is use as medicine. Your question was how does marijuana affect out health? Here is your answer. Early studies showed some evidence linking marijuana to lung cancer, but subsequent studies have debunked that association. Scientist are unclear why marijuana smoke does not have the same result as tobacco smoke on the lungs, but possibly some beneficial compounds in the marijuana smoke cancel out the ill effects, or perhaps the other health habits of marijuana smokers are different from those of cigarette smokers.

Look at it this way: There are more side effects in drugs that are legalized by FDA than marijuana in itself. When you have a severe headache you would go to a pharmacy and purchase your drug. In this case it would be ibuprofen. Ibuprofen helps your headache but damages your organs. And when you continue to have headaches you will take it over and over and over again until one of your organs shuts down. Think about it.

Question #2: History of other places that made marijuana legal? For your information there are about 20 states in the United States of America where marijuana is legal.

Question #3: How did it change their economy? According to 300 economists, including three Nobel laureates, if the government legalizes the use of marijuana it would save approximately $7.7 billion annually by not enforcing the prohibition on the use of marijuana. It would also save the government extra billions of dollars if you tax marijuana at rates similar to alcohol and tobacco. Can you imagine how much our government would save?

Question# 4: How would it reduce crimes? Even without marijuana being legalized, crimes are committed every single day. This is my opinion on how we can reduce crimes. Let’s have the Department of Public Safety campaign on reducing crime by the way of promoting Crime Stoppers and aligning with community effort. If the community is more involved in helping DPS and Crime Stoppers, I believe that we may not stop all crimes but we can prevent and reduce crimes.

Garrett F. Quichocho
Sinapalu, Rota