In response to Ms. Jasorka's letter, I am irritated to read letters from individuals who claim to care about Penn State students and their "right" to smoke marijuana. They present the illusion that marijuana is illegal on some arbitrary basis and is in defiance of our "civil right" to "cultivate, sell, or smoke" the drug. What these individuals fail to inform you of are the alarming facts as to why this drug is illegal and should remain so. Marijuana is now more potent and more addictive than it has ever been. In our parents' generation the THC level in marijuana, what makes it addictive and what produces a high, was less than 1 percent versus as much as 25 percent today. Teens receive treatment for marijuana dependency more than all other drugs combined, including alcohol.

Marijuana affects the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, and scientific studies have shown there are severe long-term effects. Marijuana also contains at least four times the cancer-causing agents in a joint than a cigarette does. A marijuana smoker is 104 times more likely than someone who does not smoke marijuana to use cocaine and other harder drugs, hence the term "gateway drug." These are facts that legalizers ignore in their zeal to get high. They disregard the lifelong effects of these drugs and the people who sacrifice their lives to protect us. Stacked up against the facts, Jasorka's arguments are nothing more than a pipe dream.