You Decide

While checking out a news website I hadn’t known about, mic.com, I ran across an article by Jon Levine about a recent interview with actress and activist Susan Sarandon who’s loved for so many roles and where she openly admitted that she used marijuana to relax. Morgan Freeman has also admitted using it in order to ease his fibromyalgia. There’s a growing movement to legalize it the article reminded readers. A bipartisan group in Congress has in fact introduced a bill to legalize marijuana for medical uses in the 23 states which already allow it, and more than the majority of people now believe that it should be legalized. Also relevant is that 69%  believe it is less harmful than alcohol. The statistics quoted there which prompted me to write this piece, however, come from the CDC (Center for Disease Control). In 2013 there were 480,000 fatalities due to tobacco usage. Those due to alcohol were 26,654. Prescription painkillers killers accounted for 16,235, heroin 8,257 and cocaine 5100. In 2013, the number of individuals killed as a result of marijuana usage, according to the CDC, was 0.
Facts often open the door to the truth. You decide, but it does look that these figures point to why fears from the detractors of the legalization debate aren’t likely to become reality.