MARIJUANA RESEARCH GIVES DRUG 'SAFE BILL OF HEALTH'

Sir, Susan Greenfield refers to cannabis causing "severe shrinkage
and, indeed, death of brain cells". These claims are apparently based
on research which was discredited many years ago. Monkeys were
suffocated in the presence of cannabis, and it was the oxygen
deprivation which caused the brain damage, not the cannabis.

She suggests that alcohol is not as damaging to the brain as cannabis.
Alcohol is a poison that has caused many deaths directly, and many
more because of chronic use; no one has ever died of cannabis
poisoning. On the other hand cirrhosis of the liver is not a subtle
condition, and it has been irrefutably demonstrated that alcohol kills
brain cells.

Sincerely,

RAY ALDRIDGE

389 North Gardner Drive, Fort Walton Beach,
FL 32548. pbwriter@fwb.gulf.net July 14.