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All:<BR>
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While looking for info on medical cannabis issues, I came across a rather startling fact that, if true, should give anyone pause regarding our cultures emphasis on what drugs we prosecute and scapegoat for their nefarious effects. Of course the fact below really is no surprise given our cultures endorsement of and caviler acceptance of alcohol across all segments of our society. What is shocking, and seems to fly under the radar by some miracle of denial and rationalization that would baffle any psychiatrist were our society a patient under care for minimizing blatantly self destructive behaviors, is the lack of seriousness of actual legal penalties for breaking the laws regarding supplying alcohol to minors.<BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.gdcada.org/statistics/teens.htm">http://www.gdcada.org/statistics/teens.htm</A><BR>
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Alcohol kills 6½ times more youth than all other illicit drugs combined.<BR>
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If this fact is true, and I do not doubt that even if it is not the exactly correct figure, it does reflect for the most part the relative magnitude of the damage alcohol does to young people compared to other drugs, how do the penalties of the legal system for supplying alcohol to minors match up with this reality compared to the penalties enforced for other drugs? Alcohol is illegal for minors, yet it seems those involved in supplying alcohol to minors, connected to killing 6.5 times more youth than all illegal drugs combined, who get caught, get a slap on the wrist, relatively speaking.<BR>
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Are the penalties for supplying alcohol to minors reflective of a rational approach to enforcing drug laws, given the magnitude of the harm done to youth by alcohol? Does the widespread acceptance of alcohol use by the mainstream culture who control the police, the courts and the government lead to a favorable status, relative to the penalties enforced for those who supply many other illegal drugs, for those who violate laws when they supply alcohol to minors?<BR>
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Ted Moffett</FONT></HTML>