KEEP THE DEMON WEED ILLEGAL

Re. the legalization of marijuana:

All textbooks on drug addiction, including those on biology, as far back as
1938 up to now, describe this substance as a harmful drug affecting the
central nervous centres, thus causing loss of behavioural control and
dangerous hallucinatory episodes.

In particular, the medical profession's Pharmacology in Medicine — a
compendium of chemical substances administered to, ingested or inhaled by,
humans — states: "The flowering tops and leaves of the female hemp plant,
produce bizarre psychic and physical effects in man when eaten, drunk, or
smoked."

Medical dictionaries describe a narcotic as, "a drug that produces stupour,
complete insensibility, or sleep, as opium, alcohol, and cannabis (pot)."
How can this be more benign than alcohol?

In consideration of the above, we are left with the following corollaries:

* Temporary loss of muscular control, or vision impairment while driving,
as with alcohol, will increase the incidence of vehicle accidents and
deaths. This concerns the insurance companies.

* If marijuana, as is now claimed, reduces physical pain in some
individuals, this puts its system effects as an analgesic on a par with
morphine and opium for instance, and therefore should be obtained only by
prescription. (This concerns medicare.)

* Hallucinatory episodes of various duration can lead to unpredictable
violent behaviour, hence to crime of varied gravity.

This concerns the police, who must use extra force to subdue an offender
who resists arrest and feels no pain. Officers then get tagged with the
stigma of police brutality.

The suggestion that the government should control the quality of legal
marijuana, as it does liquor vending, does not reduce the problem of drug
addiction but merely provides additional tax revenue.

Legalization of marijuana will remove all restraints to its use and will
increase the present 600,000 users to unpredictable numbers, putting
unneeded stress on an already stressful social life.

It appears, I suggest, that the senatorial committees have failed to do
their homework.

This concerns the taxpayers.

Paul Franck
Red Deer