FORBIDDEN FRUIT

So long as marijuana is illegal and police officers and newspaper
editors who are not competent to offer health advice about this drug
continue to do so, teenagers will mostly disregard warnings and reach
for the forbidden fruit.

The issue is our drug-prohibition laws.

Once marijuana is legalized, we can set up a regulatory framework to
minimize its use by young people, just as we do for alcohol and
tobacco, two very harmful legal drugs.

Legalization will also remove the police from the equation, so they
can stop pulling up plants and go after real criminals. In any event,
free adults have the God-given right to ingest any substance, no
matter how harmful.

Alan Randell,

Victoria