MEDIA TOO LAX

Re: The Drug Issue: Views differ on drug law ideas, Advance News, Jan. 15.

Is it but coincidence that I, a former frequent cannabis consumer,
bump into former smoke-up colleagues, discovering that most of them
have been left with some mental illness or another?

Furthermore, damage caused by intense THC consumption usually goes
undetected until after the consumer quits the habit - whether that
means days, weeks, months or even years. (And I should know, for I am
living with the detrimental legacy of my cannabis-smoking years --
damage which became apparent just a few months after I had quit the
habit, so I know it was no coincidence).

I used to believe the prevalent, dangerous, mainstream-media-propagated
myth that marijuana consumption is not a serious hazard to the
consumer's health. But in his book, Marihuana Today (sic), biology
professor George Russell cracks this myth with some sobering facts.

Among them: "THC, the principle psychoactive factor in cannabis, tends
to accumulate in the brain and gonads and other fatty tissues in the
manner of DDT (dichloro-diphenyltichloroethane). . . Marijuana, even
when used in moderate amounts, causes damage to the entire cellular
process. . . Tied in with its tendency to accumulate in the brain and
its capacity for cellular damage, there is a growing body of evidence
that marijuana inflicts irreversible damage on the brain, including
actual brain atrophy."

Russell adds that eminent scientists from around the world agree that
"marijuana must be considered a very dangerous drug."

The above, of course, fails to mention the very-real potential for
considerable respiratory problems and damage. If pro-pot people
propose legalizing / decriminalizing marijuana for practical reasons -
for example, less pressure on already-overburdened law-enforcement and
justice systems - that is one thing; but there's simply way too much
of the media-propagated B.S. out there telling our impressionable
youth that pot is harmless.

Frank G. Sterle, Jr.,
White Rock