Some would argue the “war on drugs” is a big waste of money, will never be won and we might as well give up.

Others say that, well, at least marijuana should be legalized – maybe not the “hard stuff” – because pot is really less harmful than alcohol and the majority of folks want it legalized anyway.

If marijuana is really “medicine,” they say, shouldn’t we just go ahead and approve it across the country for retail sales?

Just think of the tax money!

I say – bunk.

It might be the cool thing, it might be the latest populist trend, but I’m not buying into it.

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend a forum in the Washington, D.C. area organized by Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA).

There are a ton of coalitions around the country trying to rally their local folks to take a stand, to say they want to change the “social norms,” to improve the environment in which we raise our children.

Sure, I’m a little biased on this topic since I’m a board member of the Fountain Hills Coalition, but I don’t want our community to start thinking we can rest on our laurels in this area.

The vast majority of teenagers don’t drink excessively or take massive drugs. But should we give up on the minority? Should we not continue to try and improve our neighborhood environments – make drug-free choices easier for our children?

I believe the coalition has made significant strides in the past few years in reducing underage drinking and illicit drug use in the community.

Quite frankly, the work will never be done. There will always be cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. So do we give up?

No, we keep striving as a community to move forward, counter the latest bogus arguments and resist the Hollywood-esque attempts to portray pot, for example, as sexy, healthy and not harmful.

Let’s just take one snapshot – overdose deaths as a result of prescription drug abuse quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

We’ve had overdose deaths in Fountain Hills – heroin mostly. Prescription drug abuse often leads to heroin use (it’s cheaper and perhaps more readily available).

So wouldn’t it make sense to target prescription drug abuse?

Even if it makes the difference in one family – if one teenager says “no” and doesn’t go down Addiction Road and ultimately overdose – then isn’t it worth the meetings, the programs, the work, the community effort?

Is raising more tax revenues for government really more important than the health and wellbeing of our children?

The pro-marijuana forces are already rallying their troops (and, more importantly, large sums of money) to target Arizona in 2016 for pot legalization.

This is not the pot panacea, folks, so let’s make a difference at least in Fountain Hills. Our influences tend to get watered down beyond our local boundaries, but we can take a stand within our families, within our sphere of influences.