Belize National Teachers Union rejects marijuana legalization
The Belize National Teacher’s Union has joined the discourse about the decriminalization of marijuana. It was one of the main topics at the B.N.T.U.’s Special Meeting of the Council of Management this past Saturday. No one from the office could comment on camera about their position, but a press release says, “on the proposition to decriminalize the use of marijuana and limit its use to up to ten grams, B.N.T.U. considers the idea as pre-mature and dangerous. The negative effect of its use on the body, especially the brain and rational behavior, far outweighs its known medicinal uses.” The B.N.T.U. views marijuana as a step-up drug that can lead to crack and LSD use. So the B.N.T.U. says no to legalization of marijuana use.
Good for the teachers! We have enough problems with alcohol abuse, I don’t see a need to further impair our national brains, motivation, ambition, and coordination.
Hip hip hurray.
I am supporting the BNTU on this 101%. Is the GOB not seeing enough young teens dying almost everyday from gun violence? Has the Council of Churches give their “2 cents” on this issue yet or are they still 100% occupied with the homosexuality issue?
Below are excerpts taken from “Keeping Your Teens Drug-Free, A Family Guide” regarding negative marijuana usage.
1) “Some frequent, long-term marijuana users show signs of a lack of motivation (amotivational syndrome). Their problems include not caring about what happens in their lives and a lack of concern about how they look. As a result of these symptoms, some users tend to perform poorly in school and at work.”
2) “Heavy or daily use of marijuana affects parts of the brain that control memory, attention and learning, and can make it more difficult to learn and perform tasks that call for more than one or two steps.”
3) “Smoking marijuana causes some changes in the brain that are like those caused by cocaine, heroin and alcohol. Scientists are still learning about the many ways that marijuana can affect the brain.”
4) “One joint can deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one tobacco cigarette.”
5) “In a study conducted by the National Safety Administration, a moderate dose of marijuana alone was shown to impair driving performance; the effects of a low dose of marijuana combined with alcohol were markedly greater than for either substance alone.”
6) “Young people who use marijuana weekly have double the risk of depression later in life, and teens who smoke marijuana weekly are three times more likely than non-users to have suicidal thoughts. Marijuana use in some teens has been linked to increased risk for schizophrenia in later years.”
SO I GUESS @ Storm Rod BMNJ BNTU you have no idea of resources, which in Belize are few, our Police would rather chase and convict some kid or for that matter anyone who is easily caught for a stick of weed! Yet they would RATHER not go after a crack dealer or someone who may have a GUN!
So the basics of the problems are not the smoker but the dealer and until you can use the resources in an effective way and decriminalize the small amount you will be like a puppy chasing it’s tail, so quit chasing your tail and go and get the GANGSTERS!
I don’t smoke weed any more but, I used to and I know it is harmless, compared to cigs and booze. All the things BMNJ said are pure crap, pure fiction. Don’t decrimalize. Legaliize it and be done.
Jake, we have to agree to disagree. What does protecting kids from weed have to do with letting other crimes occur? The bloggers you name all have long records of supporting strong law enforcement on all criminal issues.
Potheads just don’t see the stupidity, laziness, and waste of human life caused by cannabis because they are the victims of it. If someone came up with strong controls, mandatory jail for people who drive after smoking or who provide it to minors, licensing and taxes, it MIGHT deserve consideration. But I have two brothers who basically wasted their entire lives with drugs, starting with marijuana, so I would be happy to execute all drug sellers.
I’ve been smoking since I was sixteen. Today I’m working on my seventieth year. In the sixth grade I scored 137 on an IQ test. Recently, I took another IQ test and scored 140. It doesn’t seem to me that my mind has deteriorated with well over fifty years of smoking pot. Decriminalization will take the profit out of weed, allow governments to increase revenues through taxation, and put the drug lords specializing in pot out of business. You certainly don’t see violence over alcohol since the end of prohibition. There will always be those who look for a greater high and turn to hard drugs in that search. That is a personality disorder, not a pot problem.