HISTORY'S LESSON

OPPONENTS of legalising "the evil weed" should learn some history. In the
1930s, when the United States experimented with the prohibition of alcohol,
the youth of the day couldn't have cared less. Marijuana was legal,
cheaper, relatively harmless and not addictive like alcohol. (A drug addict
is a person who has a physiological reaction to the removal of the supply
of that drug.)

When prohibition was repealed, the alcohol industry was desperate to regain
its lost market. So it lobbied US legislators and succeeded in having "the
evil weed" listed as a narcotic. In fact, as a result of the end of
prohibition, quite a few prohibition enforcement officers lost their jobs
and moved across into the drug enforcement agency where they fought the
good fight for the alchol industry.

Maybe we should ask ourselves just who is funding the fight to keep
marijuana illegal?

R. RUSSELL-BROWN, Wanneroo