MARIJUANA IS A DANGEROUS DRUG

To letter writer Michael T. Lawson, who recently wrote that marijuana
isn't addictive and that there are no withdrawal pains: Are you nuts?

I am a college educated woman who has had personal experience with
what the use of this drug can do to a person. I have seen users become
violent and abusive if they didn't have their daily fix. I have seen
users explode with anger. I am neither uninformed nor ignorant about
what this drug will do to a person. I have seen users steal, lie, and
cheat their families of money that was needed to pay rent and buy
groceries so they could buy a joint.

I have seen users have accidents while operating a motor vehicle after
smoking a joint. Now, you tell me how harmless this drug is. I have
seen users sell this dope to others to support their own habit. Either
you had just smoked a joint or your head isn't screwed on straight if
you think marijuana isn't dangerous.

I do not approve of using this column for personal attacks but your
letter needed answered in the strongest language that I could use and
still get this rebuttal published. Using marijuana is most certainly
addictive and dangerous to the user. If I took the time to write about
every illness this drug causes or contributes to, the paper wouldn't
have room to print the news. Getting off this drug is a test of wills.
It isn't easy and it isn't painless.

All I can gather from your letter is you probably support the
legalization of this drug. If this happens, I may actually run for
Congress myself and oppose such an idiot law. I do have personal
knowledge of what a drug user will do so don't ever tell me how kind
and gentle someone is who smokes "weed".

Don't start using this drug and think you will walk away without a
battle. Have the courage to refuse it if offered. There are very good
reasons to refuse employment to someone who can't pass a drug test.

Marijuana is dangerous.

Shirley A. Thomas

Brazil