Letters: March 22, 2018

What age

for drugs?

What?! Raise the legal age for pot, alcohol and tobacco to age 26? Who suggested that? Nobody. But let's consider it.

"Our brains are still developing up to age 26... The receptors making connections in our brains stop making those connections under the influence of marijuana and other drugs," said Diane Harp, who was repeating some things that were said at a drug abuse prevention conference. (Gazette 2-27-14).

Never doubt that marijuana will become as freely available and as lavishly advertised as alcohol and tobacco are today. And that is too free and too lavish. The pendulum has swung too far from alcohol prohibition. Of course, alcohol prohibition with heavy duty penalties was an over reaction to the earlier free flow of alcohol.

It's time we brought the pendulum back toward middle ground. How about age 26?

Or, how about a mild form of prohibition -- making possession of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana a civil infraction similar to jaywalking?

Are we going to be active or passive? What do we want for our kids, families and communities?

Wiley Hollingsworth,

Pullman