Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

I understand from today’s news announcements that you would like to move the state forward in discussions on legalizing the use of marijuana.  I have heard and read about many of the pros and cons, academic debates and wild ludicrous rants about legalizing marijuana.  After taking all of these into account; my rationale and reasoning for being an opponent to the prospects of your agenda is simple and first hand.

I am 46 years old. Today I am executive in the technology field. I am in the highest tax bracket, I am not wealthy, I still have to work to put my kids through school. I grew up in the poorest sections of the South Bronx, what is typically referred to as the Ghetto or the “projects”.

Growing up, my mother worked in the elementary school as a teacher’s assistant while she attended college at night to become a teacher. This gave my mother a first hand perspective of working with many of the children in the neighborhood.  We lived in a small two bed room apartment in the projects and both of my parents smoked cigarettes.  I grew up hating smoke. This is probably why I personally never smoked marijuana or cigarettes for that matter.  I hated being around smoke from a very young age.

As many of the kids in the neighborhood progressed through elementary school, and into middle school and high-school many of them started smoking marijuana recreationally.  I hung out with a large group of kids, and probably through the last year of middle school and through high-school lighting up a joint on the way to school was a normal occurrence.  And getting high, on the benches in front of our buildings at night was also a normal occurrence.  It was fair to say that there was not a single “drug fiend” amongst the group.  The “getting high” always seemed to be “fun times”.  I learned how to simply hang-out, keep out of the smoke, and when the joint passed my hands I just passed it on to the next person, everyone knew that I didn’t smoke and it wasn’t a big deal.  There were a few of us that never par-took of the drugs and beer (40oz’s) which also  became a normal accompaniment to the pot.

I can’t put my finger on why a few of us always managed to refrain, nonetheless we were still all looked at as a good bunch of kids.  We generally did well in school, some of us excelled, others were mediocre but we all graduated high-school and moved on into adult hood, getting married, having kids and so on.

All of the above is some basic context, now here is my perspective. Thirty (30) years later, I went back to the “old neighborhood only to find some of the “old crew” sitting on the “same bench” in front of the “same buildings” that we grew up in,  still smoking pot and drinking their 40oz of Old English beer. It’s as if time stood still for them. I remember calling my mother, and sharing with her what I witnessed.  Her response was enlightening; remember she had these kids in elementary school and later in middle school (before their pot smoking started). She recalled each one that I told her about by name, and she recounted how each one of these kids were the brightest kids not only in the school but the entire neighborhood.  There was one kid especially that she was so saddened about, his name was Frankie, and she recounted how Frankie scored higher on many of the standard tests that were administered than any kid in the state.

It was amazing that how some of these kids, now men my age, were still living in their parents apartments in the projects, sleeping on the same twin beds for 30 years.  Some just inherited these subsidized apartments after their parents passed away. They were on welfare, disability, SSI, food stamps, you name it – if there was a program available they knew how to qualify for it.  And, no they did not move onto other gateway drugs, they loved and were loyal to their weed.

For the few of us that managed to refrain from the recreational drug use; I did spend some later bachelor years experimenting with harder drugs, and eventually pursued the career that I make my living in today. Another of us joined the NYPD and have since retired to the Caribbean with his wife who was also NYPD and retired. Another, became a fire-fighter in the Bronx. A few of us joined different branches of the military and served with distinction and have since retired.

All in all, looking back, my mother recounts how some of the kids with the greatest aspirations and chances for success based on their sheer brain-power had their lives muffled due to smoking some harmless marijuana joints – they are now wards of the government, and supported by the other group of us, smaller in number, according to my dear mother, not even close to being as smart. Yet we have given back to our communities, pay taxes, and have raised honest hard-working children of our own.

I can’t for the life of me imagine why you would entertain the legalization of marijuana.

Comments welcome

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