SENATOR BLOWING SMOKE ON POT

To the editor:

The article by Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, chairman of the Senate
committee on illegal drugs, is misleading in several aspects (Senators
Endorse Healthy Debate, Not Drug Use, The Daily News, Oct. 4).

First, there are several important facts about the Senate committee that
are not widely known.

Eighty per cent of the witnesses appearing before the committee supported
liberal laws on marijuana. As a result, the committee did not hear a
reasonable and balanced view on the issue of marijuana use.

The committee heard its last witness on June 10. Yet it produced a
four-volume, 600-page report, researched, written, translated into the two
official languages, and printed and bound in less than three months. It is
obvious that the report was a work-in-progress during the hearings, with a
pre-determined conclusion.

Moreover, Nolin's assertion that the committee was not endorsing
recreational use of marijuana when it recommended it be made available for
all those 16 years and older is not correct. We only have to look to
countries that have liberalized their drug laws to realize the absurdity of
his statement. For example, one of the consequences of the liberal drug
policy in Switzerland has been that Swiss adolescents now use more drugs
per capita than adolescents in any other country in Western Europe.

The Netherlands liberalized drug experience in 1976, and this has caused
that country to become the drug capital of Western Europe, not just for
cannabis, but also heroin, cocaine and the synthetic drug ecstasy. Under
these policies, cannabis use there has increased 250 per cent.

The problem with a liberalized drug policy is that drug use increases
always and everywhere when drugs are available without legal sanction. In
short, the law serves as a deterrent. To many, what is legal becomes
acceptable, and once legal sanctions are removed, there is a greatly
increased use of drugs.

Nolin is also incorrect when he claims that cannabis use is less harmful
than tobacco or alcohol. Scientific literature concludes otherwise. For
example, a recent article in The Pediatrics Journal stated:

Marijuana is an addictive, mind-altering drug capable of inducing
dependency. Marijuana should not be considered an innocuous drug. There is
little doubt that marijuana intoxication contributes substantially to
accidental deaths and injuries amongst adolescents.

Recent studies also indicate that the risk of head and neck cancer is 2.6
times greater among marijuana smokers, and that its use causes pulmonary
damage.

It is noted that the Senate committee report states:

We are aware, as much now as we were at the start of our work, that there
is no pre-established consensus in Canadian society on public policy
choices in the area of drugs.

In view of this, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the real purpose
of the Senate committee is to encourage Canadians to accept the
liberalization of our drug laws.

Canadians should be asking themselves who will gain from these proposed
changes in the drug laws? Certainly not society, and definitely not our
children.

C. Gwendolyn Landolt, National vice-president, REAL Women of Canada