CANNABIS PROHIBITION COSTLY

DR IVAN HARPER (4.12.00) believes that the increase in cannabis use among
youth is the result of a university-inspired conspiracy, and that those
arguing for the legalisation of cannabis are morally inferior. While I may
not yet be a "Dr", I did not discover any evidence to support either of
these ideas while researching a school project on "the economic benefits of
legalising cannabis". Instead, I found a great deal of information, all of
it readily accessible at the Dunedin Public Library and on the Internet, to
suggest that cannabis prohibition is very costly to society.

I also discovered that those responsible for the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act
were seemingly devoid of morals as they used racial prejudice and
propaganda to further their own business interests. By effectively
eliminating its rival, the hemp industry, the petrochemical industry has
been unopposed in polluting the world to dangerous levels of toxicity. Thus
it seems hypocritical for prohibitionists like Dr Harper to harp on about
the possible harm of cannabis to the user when considerably more damage is
done to everyone's health from the use of petroleum products.

J. Kearney, Dalmore

[Abridged. - Ed.]