Arizona is going to legalize recreational marijuana. There may be many in this state, including me, who hate that idea, but there is no stopping the inevitable.

Two years ago, our neighbor to the west, California, legalized recreational marijuana.

On Nov. 6, 2018, our neighbor to the east, New Mexico, elected a governor who won, in large part, by arguing legalized marijuana will bring “hundreds of millions of dollars to New Mexico’s economy.”

To the north, Utah did the unthinkable. On Nov. 6 it legalized medical marijuana, the forerunner to recreational pot. It wasn’t even that close. Prop. 2 in Utah passed by 6 points (53 to 47).

And here’s the catch.

If the Mormons in Utah can’t stop the creeping legalization of pot, no one will stop it. Not Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk and not the rest of the nation.

Why do I oppose legalization?

In October, a national Gallup poll found that a supermajority of Americans now supports the legalization of marijuana — 66 percent to 32 percent.

In 1969, only 12 percent of Americans supported legalization. Now 53 percent of Republicans support it — an increase of two points in just the last year.

I oppose the legalization of marijuana for a couple of reasons.

One comes from “Gov. Moonbeam,” Jerry Brown of California, who has since been replaced by former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Jerry Brown, who denied he ever toked weed in his free-wheeling Linda Ronstadt-dating days, made a pretty sensible argument in 2014 for delaying California legalization.

Let Washington State and Colorado be the Guinea pigs for legal pot, he said. Let’s see how it works there.

It makes no sense in our modern age to promote drug use, he said. "If there's advertising and legitimacy, how many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation? The world's pretty dangerous, very competitive. I think we need to stay alert, if not 24 hours a day, more than some of the potheads might be able to put together."

Alas, the inevitable eventually rolled Jerry Brown.

He grudgingly signed into law bills that established legal pot in California. But the potheads there still grumbled that he didn’t respect them — no doubt small but satisfying consolation for the former governor.

For my niece, it was a gateway drug

Another reason I oppose legalization is my sister’s kid. She’s another product of California. Grew up in L.A. Is progressive. Votes for Democrats. And as a young woman was on the verge of death, deeply addicted to methamphetamine.

I remember a frantic call years ago from my sister who tearfully told me her daughter would not live to be 20. Her teenager had not only melted down to skin and bones, was stealing from the family to support her drug habit, but was cutting herself relentlessly with razor blades.

MORE: How high did Arizona get on medical marijuana in 2017? Really high

That daughter did make it to her twenties. Her mother got her into a lock-down treatment center, and over many months she began to recover. She has now been clean for more than a decade. She graduated with honors in college and has gone on to medical school.

To this day she strongly opposes marijuana legalization, because despite what all the new wavers insist – that it is a musty-old trope to call marijuana “a gateway drug,” it was her gateway drug to meth.

Not only that, she insists, it is the hard fist of the law that is the last, best discouragement to spiraling drug use. Without that, there is often nothing to provoke change.

Hers is one opinion. It is informed. And it’s in my family. So it shapes my thinking.

We should get in front of this (but won't)

But even I can see that marijuana will soon be legalized in my home state of Arizona. And I don’t like it.

If we were smart, the governor and Legislature would get in front of this and pass marijuana legalization with the greatest level of safeguards and regulatory framework to protect children.

But we won’t do that. Because if you oppose illicit drugs, you don’t want to be part of the machine that made them easier to get. So we’ll wait for someone, some group, some potheads, to craft the proposition that finally legalizes recreational marijuana in Arizona.

Then we’ll spend the next decade correcting all of its mistakes.

Phil Boas is editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic. He can be reached at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

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