NO LEGALIZATION

Re: Legalize Pot, editorial, July 11.

As a physician and mother of four children, I was horrified by your
editorial today in which you presented a completely one-sided case for
legalizing marijuana, concluding with the comment: "We look forward to the
day when pot decriminalization gives way to pot legalization."

Marijuana use has become an epidemic in our high schools and even junior
high schools. Although occasional social use of marijuana may have few
detrimental effects, regular use of marijuana has multiple well-documented
physical and behavioural repercussions, ranging from lung damage to poor
performance in school and impaired driving.

There is no doubt that a small, yet significant percentage of marijuana
users will progress to use of more dangerous drugs. Study after study has
shown that as the frequency of casual use of any substance rises in the
population, the incidence of heavier use and abuse rises in direct
proportion. When we urgently need to lower marijuana consumption among our
youth, why in the world would we want to legalize it and send our kids the
message that using pot is just fine?

The argument for wider availability of therapeutic marijuana use has been
greatly overstated. For the majority of patients with chronic diseases, the
medicinal benefits of marijuana can be achieved in other ways, often with
fewer side effects. For those cases where marijuana is necessary, it would
not be a Herculean task to make the most appropriate variety and quality of
cannabis for a particular condition available by prescription, just as a
wide variety of narcotics are stocked in most pharmacies.

Ellen Warner M.D. , Toronto.