USERS THE DOPES

Dear Editor:

Paul Schneidereit's Sept. 17 column "Common sense goes up in smoke" states
that he sees lawyers and doctors, college professors and politicians,
carpenters, taxi drivers, mechanics, bricklayers, salesmen, athletes and
journalists who use "dope" (or who have used "dope").

Perhaps if there were fewer people on dope, this country would not be in
such a mess. Decision-making by people of all levels in our society surely
would be better if more people had clearer minds when performing their
duties. Can you imagine how much better the decision-making process of all
the people mentioned in Mr. Schneidereit's column would be if so many were
not using drugs?

The common sense of people goes up in smoke (or down the drain) when they
choose to use dope, and to support the use of dope among young people is
criminal.

Dope smoking destroys life. Being caught with dope is not what destroys a
life; it reduces the possibility of a person to be hired as a civil
servant, travel to another country or to be promoted to a higher level at
work - and rightly so - and that is the choice that the dope user makes
when he/she lights up.

Christian Thibaudeau, Digby