cannabisnews.com: Pot Perspectives





Pot Perspectives
Posted by FoM on August 07, 2000 at 10:02:42 PT
Letters To The Editor
Source: Globe & Mail
Houston -- There is precious little that the United States can teach anyone about drug policy; no democracy has a worse one. However, U.S. research is useful for all and Canada seems more likely to profit from it than we ourselves are.I'm guessing that some of the Canadian resistance to legalizing marijuana, as suggested by William Johnson, will be based on fear of a "gateway" to the use of other drugs. 
The New York Times (March 18, 1999) called an Institute of Medicine report commissioned by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy "the most comprehensive analysis to date of the medical literature about marijuana." The report itself said the gateway is "a social theory which does not suggest that the pharmacological qualities of marijuana make it a risk factor for progression to other drug use. Instead it is the illegal status of marijuana that makes it a gateway drug."In short, we have created exactly what we claim to fear. No rational policy will emerge if the mythology of political rhetoric is allowed to drown out science. Our joint governmental stance is costly, immoral and inhumane.O, Canada, please show us the way.Jerry EpsteinPresident, Drug Policy Forum of Texashttp://www.mapinc.org/DPFT/Pot PerspectivesDaniel StoffmanMonday, August 7, 2000Toronto -- If William Johnson (Reefer Madness Redux -- Aug. 4) and The Globe's editorial board (Marijuana As Medicine -- Aug. 4) had read an article by health reporter Krista Foss in February (No Pot Luck For Kids -- Feb. 8) they might not be such true believers in the myth of marijuana's harmlessness.Basing her article on the latest scientific evidence, Ms. Foss tells us that the hydroponic dope of today is about five times stronger than the stuff Mr. Johnson inhaled in the 1960s. The result is that marijuana is no longer a "soft" drug. To quote the article, today's young pot smoker risks "damaging his intellectual ability, wrecking his lungs and increasing his risk of cancer, in addition to developing a serious dependency."Psychologist Peter Fried, of Carleton University, who has been studying marijuana for 20 years, says in the article that children whose mothers smoked pot during pregnancy exhibit deficits in problem-solving, decision-making, and impulse control by age 4. Donald Tashkin, a lung expert at the University of California, adds that a joint has more carcinogens and three times the tar of a cigarette and that the immune cells in the lungs of pot smokers are less able to fend off bacteria than those in the lungs of cigarette smokers. And the article quotes a study done at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre showing that pot smokers have 2.6 times the risk of contracting head and neck cancers than those who have never used the drug.Why are The Globe's pot advocates so eager to have this noxious substance certified for general consumption?Letters to The Editor: Letters GlobeAndMail.caContact Information:http://www.globeandmail.com/services/site/help.htmlPublished: Monday, August 7, 2000Copyright © 2000 Globe InteractiveRelated Articles:Marijuana as Medicinehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6593.shtmlReefer Madness Reduxhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6594.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #1 posted by eddie on August 08, 2000 at 01:21:40 PT:
hypocricy
I don't think anyone is saying that marijuana is good for you. But then again, neither is alcohol, coffee, or cigarettes. Yes, maybe smoking pot is more harmful that smoking a cigarette, but in the same way a glass of tequila is more harmful than a beer, and an espresso is more harmful that cafe au lait. The more important thing is to not be hypocritical. Compare the drug effects to those of alcohol and either legalize both, or illegalize both. it's the hypocricy of a sort of contradicting care that the government has for it's citizens, saying that if you take this harmful drug, that is proven to make a person more aggressive, not to mention different biological damages, it's ok. But if you take this other harmful drug, which only causes problems because it's illegal, you'll go to jail. The point is, the government is hiding behind a facade that was created in the late thirties, after trying to fight off THE number one killer drug in the states. The drug that kills more people weekly, than pot does in a whole year is also the one that is legal. why? because almost every western country would quickly be economically burderned by the loss of the tax money that alcohol generates. Western civilization has also grown accustomed to alcohol, making it a socially acceptible harmful drug. But it's still harmful nonetheless. Somewhere along the line of the drug war some have forgotten that they do go home for a glass of brandy, or have a glass or two of wine with dinner. Some may dsy that marijuana is harmful, unsafe. But that is because it's illegal, not the other way around. How safe would alcohol be if people but from some shady guy on the street. Or cigarettes for that matter.A government should not lean on hypocrisy for support with the argument that pot is bad. The double-entendre that is so clearly seen, and the greed that fuels it, needs to stop. Functioning under rules and laws that were created in a whim of hysteria will only create a bigger gap between those who do what their told and those who think of what they're doing.
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