Teenager needs to learn is how to say NO and mean it.

These choices are yours alone and it's your responsibility to make good choices and make your life meaningful. You may have had a hard beginning and you may have to work hard climbing up the ladder of life to become successful. But ultimately you become who you decide to become and you can choose to be better than what you are raised to be. The choices you make are ultimately yours and you have to be responsible and take your choices seriously. If you smoke cigarettes, you will become a smoker. If you get pregnant, you will become a parent. If you get hooked on Meth, you will become a drug addict. It's your choice and if you choose to fuck up your life, it's your fault. But if you want to become great then you can be great, even if you come from unfortunate conditions. And the difference between those who become great and those who don't is that great people take control of their lives, take responsibility for their decisions, and through pure force of will, looking into the future, and through self discipline, lift themselves up and achieve greatness. And every one of you who read this can do the same thing.

It's your life. If you screw it up, you've screwed it up. It's your fault.

There was this kid born to a single mother. His father died in a car accident a few months before he was born. The lived in a trailer in a small hick town in the south. His mother went to nursing school and left him to his grandmother for a few years. Then his mother married a drunk and had another kid. The father would often get drunk and get violent. The younger brother grew up and became a Cocaine addict. But this kid decided that he was going to rise above his upbringing as a poor southern white trash stepson of a drunk and make something of himself. He worked hard and got good grades in school and in 1962 his class went on a trip to Washington where he shook hands with President Kennedy. At that moment that poor kid from Arkansas decided that some day he was going to be President of the United States, and he went out and did it. If this kid could become President, surely you can decide to grow up and not get hooked on drugs. It's your life, and you can be what you want to be.

Why Marijuana should be Legal

Legalizing Marijuana would be a benefit to society. We as a nation would be improved by it. There are several reasons I make this claim. Although Pot has it's problems, it's benefits for outweigh it's consequences.

If Pot were legal, many people would switch from alcohol to Pot. I think that a lot of Alcohol abuse come from the fact that it is the only legal drug and therefore is overused. Alcohol is highly addictive, physically and psychologically destructive, and is a severe drag on society. I think that if Pot were legal that many people would switch to Pot and be much better off. I think one side effect of legalizing Pot would be a major reduction in the abuse of Alcohol and that the number of traffic deaths would drop dramatically.

The only reason Pot isn't legal is because there are a lot of people making money because it's not legal.

Another reason is to save the huge cost in tax dollars wasted in prohibiting Pot and enforcing drug laws that have no benefit to society. If Pot were legal you immediately eliminate the illegal Pot market and get rid of crime associated with Pot money. You could also release from jail all those convicted from Pot related offenses and cut the costs of having to build new prisons to incarcerate normal people. Because of mandatory drug sentencing laws, many states have to release violent offenders to make room for Pot smokers. That's stupid!

Pot has many other uses. Before the lumber industry lobbied Congress to make Pot illegal, Marijuana (known as Hemp) was the primary source of fiber for the production of paper. The United States Constitution is printed on Pot. With today's technologies this fiber can be processed into construction materials that would replace wood products saving our forests and lowering the costs of construction while producing byproducts useful in making fuels to run cars and generate electricity. Hemp is a very hearty plant and would be a good cash crop for our nation's farmers.