My Marijuana Post

A reader makes a fair criticism:

Just a comment that from a prevention advocate's point of view (the ones who are creating the "firestorm",) the potential innate harm of a drug is not limited to or defined by whether or not someone becomes addicted to it. E.g. It's well documented that cannabis impairs driving skills, esp the ability to stay in a lateral lane. If my son smoked dope and was killed or injured in a car accident, or was hit by someone who had been smoking dope, all I would care about is that my son was injured or killed; I wouldn't much care whether or not the use resulted from a chemically dependent limbic system or a poor choice. [Some friends] once did a workshop for parents on marijuana, and several legalization advocates showed up to argue and it was turning into a circus until a local student who was attending as part of a class assignment stood up and said she had a 2 year old son she had not planned to have and she ever would have slept with the father if she hadn't been high on marijuana. Those are the kinds of consequences that are hard to measure and do not result only from addiction, they result from use.

My point (poorly made), was not that addiction is the only harm or only important harm that might result from marijuana use. Rather, that both sides seize upon these kinds of findings and stretch the truth to make their case.