SOFT DRUG USE OPENS THE DOOR TO HARDER ONES

Editor, The Record:

Re: Grow ops and drug law letters, The Record, April 24:

With reference to letters signed by Scott Johnson, Robert Sharpe and Alan
Randell, I for one do not believe you "are not permitted to be heard."

After all, your letters were published for all to see.

Mr. Sharpe, the "gateway" to hard drugs is not a policy but comes as a
result of experimentation when an individual isn't satisfied anymore with
the high of soft drugs and go to the next level. It happens all too often.

Mr. Randell, the media stories of busting grow ops, in my opinion, are very
good evidence of a good effort at cleaning up some of the scum in our society.

Sure, there are some children suffering when parents are jailed, but the
parents should never have jeopardized them in the first place! The
newspapers are there to inform us, the public, of these low-life activities
and to be on guard.

Mr. Johnson, whose job is it if it isn't the police's to eradicate these
scourges from our society?

I take exception to your statement "marijuana growing is farming with all
the pitfalls and profits that the growing of a plant involves -- a plant
that normal everyday people ingest."

This is not normal behaviour otherwise there wouldn't be so much activity
to reach the younger people in the hopes the next generation doesn't make
such a mess of things.

Marie Cummings Mission