

We must protect our kids from the scourge of marijuana.

That's the line you'll hear from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

The Tories can't even mention Justin Trudeau and his plan to legalize pot without resorting to a plea to 'think of the children!' They'll tell you pot can fry a developing brain, spoil an academic career or even turn your son or daughter into an addict.

Brooks argued last week that, even though he smoked pot in high school, Colorado is wrong to legalize pot because governments should aim to "subtly encourag[e] the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourag[e] lesser pleasures, like being stoned."

While pot can definitely muck with a teen's development, Harper and Brooks both miss the greater danger the drug poses to young people here and around the world: crime and its consequences.

I grew up in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough and saw plenty of people smoke marijuana during my teenage years. The drug's most destructive effect wasn't missed classes or wasted afternoons, but the way it drew classmates into a criminal world.

Many fellow students, often those who came from difficult family situations or who didn't have much money, were lured into dealing drugs. Inevitably, each would show up at school one day with a face covered in bruises and scabs. Nobody had to ask what happened.

Oddly, nobody at my school starting selling alcohol to other kids. If someone really wanted to drink, they would get a fake ID, enlist an older brother or steal from mom and dad. Sure, there was plenty of underage drinking, but nobody went the way of Al Capone.

For many kids at my high school pot really was a gateway drug -- a gateway to violence and crime. If pot had been treated more like alcohol they never would have become involved with dealing in the first place. Their futures were blighted as a consequence of a prohibition that does little to keep marijuana away from young people.

Despite our relatively strict laws, more Canadians between the ages of 11 and 15 smoke marijuana than anywhere else in the Western world, according to UNICEF. Teens in Holland, with its famously lax drug policy, smoke less.

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