MANY DRUGS ARE HARMFUL

When I saw Daryl Rotondo's Dec. 14 letter to the editor, my first thought
was that our society has been condoning drug abuse for generations.
Specifically, I am thinking of tobacco and alcohol.

We know a lot more today about the harmful effects of tobacco than we did
50 years ago. Nicotine is an addictive substance but I've never met anybody
who feels that we should criminalize it like marijuana or cocaine. Sure,
we've cracked down on public smoking because of the effects of second-hand
smoke but we still let individuals make their own choice on whether they
want to use this drug.

Rotondo made the implication that marijuana use leads to use of harder
drugs, but I wonder if he has considered the costs of alcohol and nicotine
abuse. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse estimates that in 1992 the
cost of substance abuse (from health care to law enforcement to
productivity losses) for alcohol was $7.5 billion and for nicotine it was
$9.5 billion. Illicit drugs were far behind at $1.3 billion. Tobacco was
51.8 per cent of the total, alcohol was 40.8 per cent and illicit drugs
were only 7.4 per cent.

Clearly, alcohol and nicotine are costing us more than illicit drugs.
Besides, if marijuana use truly does lead to use of harder drugs, then I'd
bet that those marijuana users actually started with alcohol and cigarettes
before joints.

Cory Albrecht

Kitchener