MARIJUANA: HARMLESS ASSUMPTION LEGITIMIZED

Dear Editor,

Ending prohibition against marijuana is legitimizing its consumption, and
implying that it's basically harmless [Marijuana: Prohibition no solution
either, April 15 Letters to the Editor, Langley Advance News].

As a former pot-consumer myself, I, along with most of my former
pot-consumption peers whom I've bumped into these last half-dozen
years, can attest to the permanent damage that marijuana can cause to
the consumer's body and mind.

Scientific proof of such damage? For one, there are the startling facts
published in an article last Sept. 17, in London's Guardian newspaper; it
was authored by professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry and
hospital consultant, Robin Murray:

"In the mid-90s, a Dutch psychiatrist named Don Lintzen, from the
University Clinic in Amsterdam, noted that people with schizophrenia
who consumed a lot of cannabis had a much worse outcome than those who
didn't. This was confirmed by other studies, including a four-year
follow-up at the Maudsley Hospital. Those who continued to smoke
cannabis were three times more likely to develop a chronic illness
than those who did not consume the drug," Murray learned.

"Why does cannabis exacerbate psychosis? In schizophrenia, the
hallucinations result from an excess of a brain chemical called
dopamine. All of the drugs that cause psychosis - amphetamines,
cocaine, and cannabis - increase the release of dopamine in the brain.
In this way, they are distinct from illicit drugs such as heroin or
morphine, which do not make psychosis worse."

Frank G. Sterle, Jr.

White Rock