NOTHING 'BENIGN' ABOUT MARIJUANA

Editor, The News:

This is in response to the guest column "Waging war on a benign
plant" in the Nov. 18th edition.

As the author of this column, Chris Foulds, editor of Kamloops This
Week, was either being intentionally misleading or incredibly naive.

Like many others who continually espouse the legalization of
marijuana, he fails to acknowledge or consider all the ramifications.

In his article, he stated, "Should we legalize marijuana? Absolutely.
Should we legalize cocaine, crystal meth, heroin? That's a tougher question."

He later appears to contradict this thought, however, when he says,
"If it (marijuana) is legalized, regulated and taxed like alcohol,
the black market is taken out of the picture, leaving police and
courts to deal with serious scourges like crack and crystal meth."

The headline, "Legalized pot foils organized crime," which appears on
the continuation of the column on the next page, is totally naive.

Those involved in the distribution and sale of these drugs would only
have to "freely" hand out to our kids joints laced with crystal meth,
with the predictable results.

Is there any person hooked on meth who did not start with marijuana?
I don't think so.

Parents are having an extremely difficult time as it is, trying to
discourage their kids from using drugs without having to continually
dispute irresponsible and inaccurate articles such as this.

The editors of local papers who reprint these articles are also
compliant and are further contributing to this huge problem. They
should get out of the smoke and give their collective heads a shake.

Leon Bourque

Abbotsford