CANNABIS A PART OF OUR CULTURE

Editor:

Regarding your editorial of Sept. 6, Legalized Pot not a Solution.

To compare the minimal damages of cannabis with the horrendous damages of
alcohol is a mistake. When cannabis is relegalized, people may use it
instead of alcohol as a relaxant, and thereby reduce, not increase the harm
to society.

Witness the World Cup of soccer, recently held in Holland. The Dutch kept
the coffee houses and their supply of cannabis open for the duration of the
matches, and had none of the soccer hooliganism customary in England,
because the cannabis mellowed the hooligans out, unlike alcohol, which
cranks them up. Cannabis use is already an established part of our culture,
and the real harm is from the law, not the substance.

It would make as much sense to criminalize the most commonly used
mind-altering addictive substance, which is caffeine, as to keep cannabis
illegal.

BRUCE SYMINGTON

Medicine Hat