[DeltAlum]

When I was in college in the 60's, the police did "no knock" raids and students were sent away to twenty years of hard time for simple possission of marijuana.

Ridiculous.

However, you will not convince our daughter that "weed" is not addictive. While there may not be a chemical reaction which causes a physical addiction, the "high" is something she enjoyed so much that she kept going back. That may not fit the legitimate definition of addiction, but at least to her, it was more than she could or wanted to fight.

Was she particularly weak. Maybe. It doesn't matter.

She went from marijuana to many other "harder" drugs. For a couple of years she was nearly not a functioning human being. She partied when she could drag herself out of bed and slept the rest of the time.

Somehow she realized that she was very close to killing herself and checked herself into a detox program which relies of peer pressure instead of psychologists, etc. She was never caught or arrested. Nobody forced her into the program. She did it herself.

Thank God.

Should marijuana be leagalized? Maybe -- although for some people, it's not the "harmless" substance that many argue. Should all drugs be legalized. No.

A parent's anguish watching a child, who is self-destructing, lose three years of her life is something I hope none of the rest of you ever have to face.