MARIJUANA HELPS MANY

In addressing Tess Forbush's article ("Smoking pot is a choice, one with
consequences," April 5), I should first correct that smoking pot is not a
choice. It should be. Smoking pot is illegal. As for its consequences, I
believe President Carter said it best: "Penalties for a drug should not be
more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."

No one has ever overdosed from marijuana use. Last year nearly 700,000
Americans were arrested for marijuana possession. Tess' bold statement
"Marijuana is harmful to all users of all ages" might be challenged by those
she mentioned in her next paragraph (those with AIDS, seizure and spasticity
disorders, severe chronic pain, severe nausea or cachexia) who have found
relief in marijuana use. The suggestion that using marijuana will cause a
person's family to begin using it, or cause a person to begin trading sex
for it, is absurd. People can think for themselves.

Marijuana can be used responsibly. Marijuana prohibition or legalization is
not the cause nor the cure for this country's problems with child abuse,
STDs, criminal activity, unproductive employees or deadbeat parents. Tess
suggests that marijuana is linked to all these problems. She does not
mention that marijuana is often linked to nonviolence, peace and love.

John Clarke, Anchorage