Dilara Akgunduz Co-Editor in Chief Every year, as April 20^th starts to roll around the corner, I cannot help but hear mini-conversations about marijuana in the halls of the Latin School. In our generation, the presence of pot usage among teens is permanent and Latin is no exception to this rule. Marijuana has always been a controversial topic in America. Are you pro or anti-legalization? Will you succumb to peer pressure? Do you think its cool or gross? One Latin student noted that they were personally fine with “people going around and doing pot, but would never personally partake in the act. In fact, [they] would probably take steps to make sure that people who do do pot, stay safe.” Benita Gingerella (junior), says, “I find [pot usage] annoying, but I’ve learned to deal with it because no matter what, in high school it will always be present.” I still remember the first few times when I learned that some people in school had started smoking marijuana. At first, I was startled. It was only my freshman year in high school, and though I had been faced with the situation before, it had still managed to catch me off-guard. I can name several times where a class I was in debated whether or not pot should be legalized and I was surprised by all the different views on the matter instead of just a simple “yes”, or “no”. Jared Levin (sophomore) states, “Marijuana should remain illegal in the United States for obvious reasons. Currently there are countless amounts of deaths related to drug and alcohol consumption, and the legalization of marijuana would inevitably lead to more.” On the other hand, a student who wished to be known as “The Eagle”, said, “To be frank, marijuana is a generally accepted drug throughout our society. Though some make broad generalizations that all drugs are bad, we know the truth….Not all of them are, and some, like pot, are fine.” Another student, a junior, said that people make too much of a deal about pot. The student continued to say that studies seem to indicate that marijuana is less of a problem than alcohol. He further said, “I, personally, am not an outspoken supporter for legalization, but I do believe that if we allow drugs such as alcohol and tobacco to be consumed legally, the same should apply to marijuana.” After the surveys we did in 2008, it became apparent that we needed to discuss issues of sex, drugs, and alcohol. Despite the fact that we have talked about this issue for what seems like a billion times, we are going to be talking about this, and talking about this, and still talking about this.]]>