END THE CRIMINALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

RE: "MARIJUANA touted as 'gateway drug,'" April 28.

I agree that marijuana is sometimes a gateway to hard drugs like cocaine,
meth or heroin.

However, it's because of the policy of marijuana criminalization, not the
marijuana itself.

If coffee were criminalized, it would become a gateway to hard drugs
because it would only be sold by criminals. Actually, it makes more sense
to criminalize coffee because you can die from consuming too much coffee,
but not marijuana - 65 cups of coffee per day is lethal.

Marijuana sellers often sell other drugs and offer free samples of the hard
drugs to their marijuana customers. Thus the gateway effect. End the
criminalization of marijuana and you close the gateway to hard drugs.

Kirk Muse,

Mesa, Arizona

(I dunno. People start drinking brewed coffee and then they're into
lattes and espressos - the hard stuff.)