LEGAL POT IS NOT A BETTER IDEA

A Sept. 4 Senate report recommends marijuana legalization by comparing it to
cigarettes and alcohol. Our morgues are already full of victims of tobacco
and alcohol. Why do we need a third legal drug added to the mix?

Marijuana smokers scream until they're blue in the face that it has never
killed anybody, while writing off as coincidence that regular marijuana
smokers get lung cancer almost as often as their nicotine-addicted
counterparts. Or that marijuana shows up in the blood of those who cause
fatal traffic accidents almost as often as alcohol.

The overall death rate is relatively low precisely because marijuana usage
is relatively low, but that will change fast if we put marijuana into corner
stores as the Senators recommend.

The world's biggest tobacco companies have already trademarked brand names
like Acapulco Gold so if any country ever legalizes marijuana, they can move
fast to get packs of 20 Acapulco Golds into the supermarkets next to the
bananas, or to lace existing tobacco brands with subliminal levels of
marijuana.

Tobacco will kill roughly half of Canada's five million cigarette smokers
alive today. Big Tobacco kills more Canadians every year than the 42,000
that died in all six years of the Second World War combined, and recruits
thousands more Canadian kids every week.

Tobacco was legalized before we knew its deadly effects. Do we really want
to risk similar numbers for marijuana?

Marc Ander, Director Airspace Action on Smoking and Health