'GATEWAY' ARGUMENT ILLEGITIMATE

The line of reasoning claiming that marijuana leads to harder drugs
is specious ["A gateway drug," Northwest Voices, Feb. 23]. It would
be laughable if it weren't so lamentable. One could as easily claim
that all addicts started out on mother's milk.

In the long chain of events that compose an addict's life, how is it
possible to point to a single link in that chain as the single point
of no return? Alcohol is also a link in that chain. Yet no one calls
for the return of prohibition as a solution to drug addiction.

Tens of millions of people smoke marijuana. Yet those tens of
millions have not become heroin addicts. Is this proof that, rather
than leading to harder drugs, marijuana use encourages people to stay
away from them?

There are legitimate arguments for and against the legalization of
marijuana, but this is not one of them.

- - Marshall Dunlap, Kent