IT'S STILL SMOKING

Ottawa - Two of your Tuesday headlines signal a hidden public health
challenge: Cauchon Says Pot Laws Could Be Eased suggests that more people
may soon be smoking marijuana even though physicians are being urged in a
separate report on the same page to counsel patients to "avoid smoke, all
smoke."

Marijuana smoke contains many of the same cancer-causing and
heart-disease-inducing chemicals as cigarettes. Because people smoke
marijuana with larger puffs of smoke, inhaled deeper into the lungs and for
longer periods, the smoke from a few joints can be as harmful as the smoke
from an entire package of cigarettes.

Marijuana should, perhaps, be decriminalized. But it should most certainly
not be smoked.

Cynthia Callard, executive director, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada