GATEWAY THEORY IS FALSE

IT WAS interesting to see that as many as 35% of Canadians still believe in
the so-called "gateway" theory that smoking marijuana will lead to the use
of harder drugs ("Poll cases the joint," April 27). The gateway theory
states that those who use hard drugs used marijuana first, and that
therefore there is a connection between using marijuana and moving on to
hard drugs. It does not mean, however, that most marijuana users will go on
to use harder drugs. On the contrary, most marijuana users do not go on to
use hard drugs. The connection between marijuana and hard drugs lies only
in the fact that people have to buy them both from the same guy.

Chris Hagglund

(See next letter)