SO, WHO SAYS MARIJUANA ISN'T A DANGEROUS DRUG ON OUR STREETS?

EDITOR, THE TIMES:

In the May 22 edition of your paper - History may yet prove Felger
right on drug prohibition - Karen Gardner writes in part: ". . . if
you make it illegal the criminals will crawl out of the woodwork to
sell it at great profit to them and at great cost to society."

In the May 26 edition of the Times, Russel Barth writes in part:
"Adults set up this system of drug prohibition which subsidizes
gangsters and their lifestyles."

If drugs are legalized would not the criminal element have a cheap
source of drugs to sell to our youth? Would they not push the harder
more addictive drugs?

Is the smoking of a dangerous weed so important that the
pro-marijuana faction will expend such a large amount of energy and
effort in promoting the product?

Is it possible many of them are marijuana dependent (addicted)? The
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) states in part:
"Young people who smoke marijuana are two to five times more likely
to move on to harder drugs."

The JAMA also states, "almost half of the young people who started
smoking marijuana before 17 went on to use harder drugs later in
life.The study is the latest to suggest the link between marijuana
and other drugs like cocaine and heroin."

So, who says marijuana is not a dangerous drug? The "dependant" user?

Parents need to be open and consistant with an anti-drug message by
both example and word.We must also remember that anyone who purchases
the illegal drug, marijuana and any other illegal drugs, is
supporting the criminal element.

It is not prohibition of drugs that creates violence but the customer
purchasing the product.

Eric Myrholm,

Abbotsford