Think about this before legalizing pot

Before approving any federal legalization of marijuana, it might be well to consider such questions as the following:

Companies, how would you like to be compelled to employ drug users whose use of marijuana makes them less productive and more often sick?

Workers, how would you like to be compelled to work with drug users whose marijuana use makes them open to various mental disorders?

Landlords, how would you like to be compelled to rent to mentally ill and sometimes violent marijuana users, who often steal to pay for their drugs?

Renters, how would you like to be compelled to have marijuana-smoking neighbors, exposing your children to them and their intoxicating smoke?

Those who wouldn't like to do this might consider that there can be no assurance that following any federal pot legalization, the quite justified discrimination against marijuana users in these situations would be outlawed. Compelled to employ unproductive workers, quality and profits would be seriously reduced, forcing many employers to curtail or end their operations, throwing even productive workers out of work.

The only way to be certain that such an unfair ban of needed discrimination never occurs is to defeat any federal legalization of marijuana (now being sponsored). State laws for medical or any other uses of marijuana are steps to federal legalization and, therefore, threats of such a possible development.

Russell Yohn

Elgin