GAIL EVERETT, Kennewick

I am so confused. The voters approved legalizing marijuana to earn more money for education, police and a few other lucky sources, but won't the extra revenue be needed to develop, educate and enforce the new pot program?

If pot can be purchased cheaper on the street or grown at home, doesn't this decrease that potential pot of gold? What about the revenue lost by excusing the hundreds of pending drug cases? Maybe we'll make up for lost revenue by taxes received from indoor growing and smoking paraphernalia shops that are springing up everywhere, and just think of the extra revenue coming from "pot tourism."

As I see it, the cost to government, police and social programs will skyrocket. The social costs to families and children and the mental and physical health costs (including those to developing fetuses) will be indescribable.

I believe we have just taken another step toward our own, self-induced apocalypse and Washington is leading the way.

Approving recreational use of an illegal drug is opening the door for more abuse, neglect and social problems. We need to understand, our future is not based on what is good for "me" but what is best for "we."