CIGARETTES AND MARIJUANA

Thanks to The News-Journal for publishing the Doonesbury comic that drew a
direct comparison between the dangers of tobacco and marijuana (Jan. 27).

In the past, newspapers, television and radio news broadcasts tended to
ignore or even suppress the fact that smoking marijuana is safer than
smoking cigarettes.

That's right. Tobacco cigarettes kill more than 400,000 U.S. citizens each
year while anti-marijuana laws result in well over 700,000 arrests.

Perhaps if the governor's daughter, Noelle, had been allowed legal access
to marijuana, she would not have been arrested recently and charged with
prescription fraud while allegedly trying to buy Xanax. It is "high" time
that marijuana prohibition is stopped.

Jose Melendez

DeLand

WANTS A FAIR DEBATE

Are we to conclude from this Doonesbury cartoon and its comparison between
tobacco and marijuana that one is more dangerous than the other? Possibly
more addictive? Or should our conclusion be that both should be legal (or
illegal)?

I find it offensive to depict this subject on the comics pages using
caricatures appealing to children. If the argument includes deaths caused
by tobacco consumption, should the use of marijuana include its insidious
nature? The debate must be serious, educational with all facts presented
accurately, and fair.

Carol Lynn Bari

Flagler Beach