Ted Williams' "Ditchweed Digs In" (March/April 2000) is exhaustively
accurate and unbiased except in one regard: his labeling of delta-nine
tetrahydrocannabinal (THC) as a "narcotic." Merriam Webster's
curiously circular second definition says a narcotic is "a drug (as
marijuana or LSD) subject to restriction similar to that of addictive
narcotics whether physiologically addictive and narcotic or not."
Apparently introduced sometime after 20th-century drug laws were
enacted, this definition is clearly a crude propaganda device.

Calling THC a narcotic is reefer madness in its purest form. We'll
never be able to distinguish between hemp and marijuana so long as we
remain deceived by prohibitionist nomenclature that equates hemp with
heroin.

Larry Stevens,
Springfield, IL