CANNABIS ISSUES

I agree that the federal government has avoided revisiting cannabis laws for
too long. However, I think it's important that we all, especially the press,
take the time to understand the issues.

In your editorial of Aug. 2, ("Decision Time For Marijuana"), you ask if we
"really want to add another legal addiction to the long list of drugs that
Canadians now indulge in." Had you actually read the Parker ruling, you
would have noticed that "cannabis is not an addictive substance."

You also speculated that if cannabis were legalized, it might "cause the
same health problems as tobacco and the same public intoxication problems as
alcohol." Again, had you read the rulings, you would have discovered that
"marijuana consumption rates tend to rise and fall independent of the law"
and that "consumption of marijuana is relatively harmless compared to the
so-called hard drugs including tobacco and alcohol."

I urge you and all your readers to review the evidence before jumping to
conclusions. As Albert Einstein put it, "The problems that exist in the
world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."

Matthew M. Elrod, Victoria