END POT PROHIBITION TO CLOSE THE GATEWAY

Editor, The Record:

I'm writing about Marie Cummings letter, "Soft drug use opens the door
to harder ones" (May 8, 2003). It is the policy of marijuana
prohibition that creates the gateway to harder drugs. Not the
marijuana itself.

I personally have never seen heroin, cocaine or methamphetamines.

However, I was offered free samples of all of these dangerous drugs by
my suppliers of marijuana. Because of marijuana prohibition policies,
marijuana is often sold by the same people who also sell dangerous and
addictive drugs -- and offer free samples.

End the policy of marijuana prohibition and you close the gateway to
other dangerous drugs.

Kirk Muse