Crying 'wolf' in war on drugs

The July 10 article "Hospitals see more of heroin addicts" begs some
serious questions about our war on drugs, especially the quote, "When
was the last time you saw a commercial, Don't do heroin?" While
marijuana seems to be the "poster child" of the War on Drugs, the
more dangerous drugscrank, crack,heroin and inhalantsare almost
never mentioned. We have more than 500,000 heroin addicts in this
country and, as this article points out, there is ample statistical
evidence that this drug is harmful to the user and to society. We
have more than 10 million marijuana users in this country and, with
this substantial statistical pool, we have absolutely no numerical
evidence that marijuana is harmful, either to the user or to society
at large. Federal law puts marijuana in the same class as heroin and
cocaine. The true danger with this "marijuanafirst" approach to the
War on Drugs is that once teenagers discover that marijuana is not as
harmful as the government portrays, they are then willing to try more
dangerous drugs, thinking that the government lied about them also.
Richard Stanley Sacramento