JUNK FOOD WORSE THAN POT

To The Editor, RE: Addict helps students 'get real'

Here is some reality for you, kids: Junk food will kill many times
more Canadians this year than all illegal drugs combined. That
cellphone at your ear is many times more likely to give you cancer
than any of the drugs you might buy using it!

I always find it amusing how someone who smokes pot a few times a week
is dismissed as a "stoner", but some "former" multiple-drug addict
comes to school and he treated like a wise old sage.

My story is different. I was addicted to alcohol and legal drugs and
junk food. These addictions were brought on by a chronic pain
condition and PTSD, and by societal conditioning that says "drugs" are
"bad", but "medicines" are "good".

As it turned out, marijuana was the best thing for me. With the
pharmaceuticals I was tethered to a wheelchair for five and half
years, I was overweight for a while, drastically underweight for a
while after that, suicidally depressed, and impotent.

Today I use 6-8 grams of cannabis each day - eaten, smoked, and
vaporized. I use no wheelchair, I am at a correct weight for my
height, I've returned to the comedy stage, and I am one of the
most-published anti-prohibition letters writers in North America. I
eat a diet that is healthier than 99.99% of the population, use no
pharmaceuticals for my fibromyaglia and PTSD, and I am very sexually
active.

But there is no way any school principal would ever let me into a
school to talk to kids about the dangers of junk food and
pharmaceuticals. This prove that these events have less to do with
truth than they do with obedience. It isn't about telling kids the
"truth", it is indoctrination, designed to condition the coming
generations to accept prohibition and the personal intrusions that
come with it.

We live in a culture that glamourizes sex, fun, danger, thrills,
law-scoffing, risk-taking, rule-breaking, power, wealth-acquisition,
and authority-resisting. We advertise booze, fast cars, fast food,
violent movies and video games, and drugs of all kinds, right on TV!
Then we tell kids that "drugs are bad". Does anyone still believe that
kids don't notice this wild hypocrisy? A ruse by any other name...

There is also a misconception in our society that suggests that only
drug-abstinence is to be encouraged and admired. Telling kids to
"never" use certain drugs is like telling them to never see a certain
genre of movie, never go to an amusement park or exotic country, or
never do anything at all that may be both risky and fun. It teaches
them to be afraid of new things, instead of curious, and as history
has shown, fortune favours the adventurous. Sensible, moderate,
well-informed drug use is no more harmful, dangerous, or immoral than
any one of dozens of other activities humans participate in every day.
And if you think "drugs" have nothing good to offer society, then
throw away every CD you own.

For those keen on teaching kids about drugs without all the hyperbole,
spin, sloganeering, and bald-faced lies of the standard "education"
programs, I recommend the Canadian Students For Sensible Drug Policy
website at ( http://www.cssdp.org ), the Educators For Sensible Drug
Policy website at ( http://www.efsdp.org ), or the Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition website at ( http://www.leap.cc ).

Russell Barth

Educators For Sensible Drug Policy

Federally Licensed Medical Marijuana User