TOLERANCE OF VIEWPOINTS GOES BOTH WAYS

I am in shock that Tamara Cartwright (June 12 Letter to the Editor)
would make the brazen assumption that only her point of view is valid
for being printed in the newspaper.

There is documented medical evidence that marijuana is harmful,
particularly to the brain and body of developing children and
adolescents.

Legalizing marijuana would only serve to make it more accessible. We
already have trouble keeping cigarettes and alcohol away from
under-age people; logically, we would also have trouble keeping this
marijuana weed away from those under whatever age is set as the
minimum for legal use.

Marijuana must remain a controlled substance, with our objective being
to remove it, as well as the entrenched product of tobacco, from any
status as socially acceptable for use. We have tobacco use down to
less than one person in five, and it will, in time, disappear from any
mainstream appearance. Marijuana must also be expunged, as the future
of our children depends on discrediting marijuana and other drugs.

I am tolerant of the expressing of pro-marijuana viewpoints, but the
opposite view is equally valid to be expressed, and Tamara Cartwright
should be tolerant of it.

Geoffrey Capp

Lethbridge