MARIJUANA USE IS NOT LARGELY BENIGN

"In Canada alone, last year, more than 45,000 people died as a result of
tobacco: -- That's the same number of people as three school buses full of
kids driving off cliffs every single day of the year."

"Just in B.C. 5,700 people died last year because they puffed on cigs: --
That is one basketball team wiped out, every single day of the year.": Gasp
2001.

The numbers are factual and the analogies put those figures into perspective.

Four hundred and seventy million dollars is collected annually in taxes
from tobacco sales. It costs the health-care system in Canada three times
as much to treat tobacco related illnesses. Hollywood has brought its own
version of awareness to the big screen in the movie The Insider. Lawsuits
against the big tobacco companies have made their way into our court
systems throughout the continent.

The argument is that although the smokers had free choice of whether they
used tobacco or not, the companies hid the deadly consequences from the
public. Now the day of reckoning and accountability has arrived. The
unnecessary and preventable deaths and illnesses are part of the driving
force behind the movement. The governments are seeking compensation for the
trillions spent in health care and treatment due to the deadly effects of
tobacco.

Then let us learn from the body count of loved ones that were lost to
tobacco and from the suffering of those who are currently living with the
consequences, that such a plight will not be allowed to attack our society
again.

In order to do this let us look at only the facts of marijuana, facts and
researched documented results that can not be governed by law, popular
vote, personal opinion or individual desire.

Marijuana use is not largely benign like some of its advocates would like
the public to believe. The active ingredient in marijuana -- THC -- is very
potent. Minute amounts will disrupt brain cell chemistry as evidenced by
the "high or stoned" feeling. Brain cell changes are clearly visible
through an electron microscope. Marijuana is a neuro-toxic drug.

Marijuana is not a pure substance but is an unstable, varying, complex
mixture of over 400 chemicals. When marijuana is smoked, it produces 2,000
identifiable toxic and cancer causing chemicals, 61 of which are unique to
marijuana. Some of these cancer causing substances are found in much higher
concentrations in marijuana smoke than tobacco smoke.

Numerous studies in the American Journal Respiratory Care Medicine,
Australia/New Zealand Journal of Medicine and the New England Journal of
Medicine, have documented that marijuana poses health risks to its users,
especially those with compromised immune defense systems. In AIDS patients,
marijuana use has been associated with increased fungal and bacterial
pneumonia. Marijuana smoke produces airway injury, acute and chronic
bronchitis and lung inflammation.

Marijuana smoke produces four times the amount of tar and carbon monoxide
compared to tobacco smoke. It has concealed harmful effects of the immune
defences in the lungs. The American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care
Medicine documented in 1997 that marijuana smoke in the lungs impairs the
ability of the blood cells to engulf and kill both bacteria and tumour cells.

Learning from our societal experience with tobacco and the terrible effects
that it has had on people and their lives, along with the strain on the
health-care system, which in turn affects everyone and is not just isolated
to the individual themselves, what will the possible consequences be if
marijuana use was to be decriminalized? Also, where is the logic when we
condemn the tobacco companies and discourage smoking with education,
campaigns and aggressive public service announcements but have a movement
where advocates are trying to tell the public that marijuana is a "soft
drug" and its effects are isolated to the user?

Anecdotal claims of marijuana's benefits by proponents who wish to see it
decriminalized should not subvert the public from the proven scientific
findings. It is the responsibility of those who know the facts to educate
the public so that informed decisions can be made. If no such attempts are
made to ensure that the majority have the correct information, then those
that do not speak are as accountable as those cigarette companies that hid
the deadly truths about tobacco so many years ago.