ARTICLE GOT TO THE GRASSROOTS

THANK you for publishing an article about cannabis and the prohibition laws
which make criminals of those of us who choose to buy or grow it. Your paper
truly lived up to its name. Cannabis is a remarkably benign substance -- far
safer than alcohol or tobacco. You may hear politicians say that we should
not legalise another drug because that would only make matters worse. When
cannabis is available to me I choose it instead of alcohol.

Reports from the European Soccer Championship in Amsterdam suggest that fans
who might usually get involved in alcohol fuelled troublemaking were content
to puff on a joint or three and chat amiably with other fans.

There is every indication that legalising cannabis would not be the
dangerous social experiment that senior politicians mew about. Why do we
tolerate the government violating us for what we choose to put in our
bodies?

I would like some more of the civil liberties that we are taught to expect
from a liberal democracy. How much longer shall we suffer the dangerous
social experiment of prohibition?

Michael Nendick, Herts, England