FACTS SHOW MARIJUANA FAR FROM HARMLESS

Re: John Robson's July 19 column "Let's just say no to the drug war."

Robson contends that smoking marijuana is pretty much harmless. In
days gone by however, smoking a single marijuana joint was akin to
smoking nine tobacco cigarettes given the more intensive
concentrations of carcinogens in smoked marijuana. There is every
possibility that in today's world, the impact is much greater given
the steadily increasing strength of marijuana.

Smoking marijuana is not harmless on its own, and in combination with
other drugs, legal or illegal, it can become positively deadly.

Robson states that "every study has found marijuana to be mostly
harmless." That would only be true if he included the phrase "that I
have read." There are over 10,000 studies on the harmful effects of
marijuana at the University of Mississippi alone.

In the same newspaper on the same day was a front-page article about a
Victoria neighbourhood fed up with drug users. In a British newspaper
comes the report about Lambeth in south London where the laws on
marijuana are not being enforced for a trial period. The community
"has gone to pot" virtually overnight and community activists are now
taking time out of their family lives to do what's needed to try and
get their neighbourhood back from the druggies.

Enforcing drug laws may appear costly, but at least the numbers are
calculable. The costs of not enforcing drug laws are
incalculable.

Ken Lane,

Canadian Communities Against Substance Abuse,

Victoria.