Tobacco Outlawed and Marijuana Legalized

I agree with the conclusion of the Nanaimo Daily News editorial. In the first place, both tobacco cigarettes and marijuana (cigarettes) are made of plant material. They are both smoked. Tobacco has been used legitimately, albeit ignorantly, until more recent times when the addictive nature of nicotine and the cancer-causing effect of smoked tobacco become better understood. Therefore, replacing one addictive tobacco product with another that has a delivery system that is far worse and has the ability to impair judgment and affect the brain is looney. The fact that while society is tightening restrictions on the use of tobacco, we have a pro-marijuana movement bleating about legalization that would be laughable if it weren't so serious. If tobacco was outlawed and marijuana legalized, is it likely that criminal organizations might become interested in tobacco products? Consider contraband smuggling of cigarettes already taking place off of the Mohawk reserve in southern Ontario. Perhaps we should consider educating our children about the harms of all drugs to discourage their use. Maybe the answer lies in discouraging consumption as a means of putting the narco-trafficking organizations out of business thereby reducing the mayhem in Mexico, Central and South America, the U.S. and Canada. Maybe instead of whining like babies for candy, drug users, and those sympathetic to them, should consider healthier forms of recreation. The use of so-called comforting chemicals, legal and illegal, by North American society reached epidemic proportions long ago and costs lives and billions of dollars every year. Legalizing more of them isn't going to change that. Nor is it the smart thing to do as many vested interests would have us believe. Removing the curiosity and desire to take drugs for recreation is the answer. Acquiescing to weakness is not.