Joseph A. Califano Jr.

About the author: Joseph A. Califano Jr. is chair and president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Marijuana is an especially harmful drug for children and adolescents. Marijuana can stunt a youth's intellectual, emotional, and psychological growth by impairing memory, learning abilities, and motor skills at crucial stages of human development. Furthermore, statistics have proven that marijuana is a gateway drug— people who smoke it are more likely than nonusers to try drugs such as cocaine, LSD, or heroin. While most youths who smoke marijuana may not move on to harder drugs, a significant percentage do—a fact that suggests that the best strategy in preventing drug abuse is to maintain strong social sanctions against marijuana. Efforts to decriminalize marijuana should therefore...