NOTHING LIKE TRUTH

Dear Editor:

It's refreshing to finally see some integrity and honesty by government
ministers, with open and frank discussion about their lives, the good along
with the bad. My compliments to Jane Purves, Nova Scotia's education
minister. It takes guts to bare our human frailties, unlike some of the
cowardly and hypocritical politicians south of the border.

I just hope this disclosure is not some cynical media coup to again promote
the falsehoods of the Gateway Theory - that soft drugs such as marijuana
lead to hard drug addiction. The Gateway Theory has clearly been debunked.

If a causation between soft drugs and hard drug addiction exists, it is a
result of the prohibition of soft drugs, which contributes to their
potential for being a gateway to the hard, addictive drugs.

Separating and regulating marijuana, such as in Holland and parts of Europe,
regulates the market and severs the connection to the black market, where
drug dealers ply their trade in a variety of illicit substances. Marijuana
is known to be very safe and non-addictive, and its potential for abuse is
relatively low.

The kids in our education system deserve the truth, not more of the same
lies about cannabis prohibition that feed a very destructive socio-political
ideology, commonly known as the War on Drugs. Let's start reforming our own
laws and perhaps our youth will have greater hope and reason to reform
themselves. There is nothing like the truth, you know!

David d'Apollonia, Dartmouth