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Letter: By this marijuana logic, let's outlaw pizza Peter B. Wilson 4:49 p.m. MST July 7, 2016 Laurie Roberts believes that arresting 12,000 marijuana users in Arizona every year somehow stops kids from getting it. Ms. Roberts may be commended for never being a kid who wanted pot, but her belief that prohibition stops those who do is pure fantasy. It is easier for kids to get pot than cigarettes and booze, precisely because the latter are lawfully regulated. Secondly, Ms Roberts is worried because she cannot find “a definitive study by a serious peer-reviewed medical journal, assuring us that pot is without harm.” What about cake? Ice cream? Pizza? Candy bars? Soda pop? Why not outlaw all these as well, none of which have definitive studies showing they are without harm? Prohibition has utterly failed to reduce marijuana use, but it has reduced funding for schools, it has reduced the effectiveness of our criminal justice system, and it has reduced respect for the law. Theses are the “benefits” of marijuana prohibition that Roberts wants us to keep reaping, before we incur the “cost” of a $113 million tax windfall. With that kind of logic, who needs fear-mongering? — Peter B. Wilson, Phoenix |