Marijuana is beneficial; alcohol is not

Editor:

Alcohol doesn’t cure or help anyone’s health concerns and it doesn’t make you popular either. It’s never prescribed by doctors to relieve pain, help with self-esteem or treat PTSD.

Listen to any country song to hear the pitfalls of alcohol abuse, including women’s clothing falling off, cheating hearts, waking up married and not knowing your last name and how someone stopped loving her once he finally died of liver disease.

Alcohol consumption does not make a person interesting or more lovable, and it doesn’t cure a broken heart and has never been proven to do anything positive, unless you count the list above as some measure of success.

During prohibition, folks thirsted for alcohol to drown their sorrows and producers sold moonshine. People would sometimes die from a particularly poisonous batch and life went on. Although safer to drink now because of regulation, we fail to recognize the multiple ways it is dangerous.

It is the direct cause of countless unnecessary and premature deaths of young and old alike. Binge poisoning at frat parties, overindulgence at nightclubs and too many beers with friends can lead to date rapes, drunken rages, DWIs and domestic violence. Alcohol addiction ruins the lives of everyone around the alcoholic and, at the very least, prevents people from enjoying their full mental, physical and spiritual health.

Contrast alcohol with cannabis, a natural, God-given plant with several uses. According to Alyssa Pagano with Business Insider, “As early as the 1800s, there were no federal restrictions on the sale or possession of cannabis in the US. Hemp fiber from the plant was used to make clothes, paper, and rope … it was used medicinally, but as a recreational drug, it wasn’t that widespread.”

She goes on to say that once Mexican immigrants were seen to use it recreationally, and about the time prohibition ended, the prohibition czar rebranded cannabis — healthy and taxed — to marijuana, a dangerous gateway drug brought by others to ruin America’s youth.

We should recognize that the war on drugs that included marijuana was rooted in prejudice against those who used it, specifically Mexican, Native and Black Americans.

A Pew Research poll in 2018 showed that 61 percent of Americans approved of nationwide legalization. It’s called cannabis again, it’s legal here, regulated, non-addictive and helps countless people to finally kick a nasty, addictive, liver-damaging opioid habit. It helps people with PTSD, it helps people with anxiety, it’s gentle and highly effective.

The recreational value of it is also beneficial to our well-being and nobody is going into a marijuana rage or having blackouts and waking up married to a stranger. I think it’s pretty cool that we finally came to our senses and now recognize a natural, beneficial and safe remedy for some of our deepest aches and pains.

 

Michelle Tafoya, Los Lunas

 

Masks and vaccinations

Editor:

The anti-vaxxers keep talking about “my rights.” What about my rights and the rights of the students to attend school in person — to get a proper education?

Because of them, students in the high schools in Los Lunas and Belen were in remote learning.

Because of them, the pool (was) closed also. I go swimming everyday for exercise.

There are teachers at Belen High School out because of COVID-19 and sill getting paid! Perhaps if they were told to get the vaccine or not get paid, they would be more open to get it.

These teachers should be putting the health and safety of our students first. We would not be in this situation if everybody would wear masks and get the vaccines — period!

 

Jeanene M. Sisk, Rio Communities

 

What’s your Reaction?
+1
3
+1
2
+1
1
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0

The Valencia County News-Bulletin is a locally owned and operated community newspaper, dedicated to serving Valencia County since 1910 through the highest journalistic and professional business standards. The VCNB is published weekly on Thursdays, including holidays both in print and online.