JOINT APPEAL

I write regarding your recent article about cannabis in Hot Press. On the
back cover of the magazine is an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes.
Tobacco is, speaking from my own chemical experience, at least fifty times
more addictive than cannabis.

So, let's dispense with the false governmental concern that Eoin Ryan so
conveniently embraces. The Irish Government is backward and ignorant but not
stupid. It knows that cannabis cuts people off from menial and trivial
emotional turmoil and struggle, and Fianna Fail is not ready to allow people
to be distracted from working like dogs. So people will never know their
true worth, shovelled into jobs they hate. Smoking cannabis is a friend to a
lonely wandering soul who has to abide by draconian inquisition.

I do not expect to win your fifteen pounds gift token, as I feel I have
digressed to much from surface issues. Too bad, because what we need in this
country is truth and honesty. Cannabis is the journey from naive, emotional
anguish to wise, reassuring creativity.

John Murphy, Charleville, Co. Cork.