THINK BEFORE YOU LIGHT UP, TAKE A PUFF

Q: Is marijuana dangerous for your health?

A: There is an ongoing debate about marijuana's safety.

Toni Latino of the Florida chapter of N.O.R.M.L., the national
organization for the reform of marijuana laws, considers marijuana
nearly harmless.

''There is not any amount of marijuana that you can use that will kill
you,'' she said. ``In fact marijuana is one of the safest
therapeutically active substances known to man.''

Compared to legal substances, she has a point. Cigarettes kill 400,000
people in the United States each year. Alcohol kills 100,000. But
overdose deaths from marijuana are virtually unheard of.

So what's wrong with taking a toke from time to time? Plenty,
according to Bernie Diaz of the Miami Coalition for a Safe and
Drug-Free Community. ''In South Florida we can say nearly 100 percent
of youthful adolescents that are in treatment right now state that
marijuana is the primary drug of their addiction,'' Diaz said.
``That's irrefutable evidence of its dangerous risks and
consequences.''

Nearly 40 percent of men arrested each year in Miami test positive for
marijuana use, Diaz says, and it's the most common drug found in the
blood of murder victims. Marijuana-related visits to emergency rooms
are on the rise throughout South Florida, and so are marijuana-related
rehab admissions.

So yes, marijuana is dangerous to everyone's health.

Dr. Sean Kenniff covers health WFOR CBS-4. The advice in this column
is not a substitute for consulting a physician.