WHERE IS THE REAL SMOKING GATEWAY?

It's not possible in a short letter to adequately address the
egregious errors and intellectual dishonesty displayed by Dr. Ray
Baker in Gail Johnson's article "Doctor Draws on Past to Treat
Addictions" [Jan. 27-Feb. 3], though I could mention that his insistence on
continuing to embrace the discredited "gateway theory" and his claim that
marijuana is addicting suggest he is in the wrong profession.

His parroting of the claim that a marijuana user is 84 times more
likely to become a cocaine user can only be described as grasping at
straws, and his convoluted efforts to piggyback marijuana onto the
dangers of tobacco, as well as his refusal to acknowledge a
distinction between the effects of drugs and the effects of drug
prohibition, are deplorable--and doubly so coming from a health-care
professional rather than the law-enforcement industry, which garners
billions in profits from the criminalization of self-medication with
drugs not controlled by the pharmaceutical industry.

Perhaps I should also mention that if one wishes to subscribe to a
gateway theory, the most likely gateway drug is tobacco, since the
most popular delivery systems for tobacco and marijuana are identical
and, with respect to addicting drugs such as heroin, tobacco has
already accustomed the user to being a slave to an uncontrollable craving.

It's rather surprising that Baker is a doctor and yet seems to be
unaware of Paracelsus' ancient dictum: the difference between a
medicine and a poison is the dosage.

George Kosinski

Gibsons