POT MISINFORMATION

Re: Is The Cure As Bad As The Disease? letter to the editor, March 1.

Letter-writer Brian Preston incorrectly quotes a study by Dr. Geoffrey
Robinson of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, claiming
that smoking one cannabis joint is equal to smoking 20 cigarettes.

Let us be logical here. In all the years that its use has been
prevalent in our society, not one single death has been directly
attributed to cannabis. If pot is even 2.5 times as adverse as
tobacco, which kills one out of two smokers on average, wouldn't that
make smoking pot 100% fatal? If so, then where are the bodies?

I can think of numerous valid reasons why any healthy individual
should refrain from smoking pot, but the excuses given to us by law
enforcement and some scientists directly contradict the medical
findings of dozens of reputed scientific studies.

Whether it be police departments, prisons or all of the various
industries that support and profit from them, there is a lot of money
involved in drug enforcement. Has anyone ever considered that this
might be the reason we continue to wage a senseless war on a plant
that has never killed a single person?

R. Sharkey, Gillies Bay, B.C.