Pubdate: Tue, 22 May 2012
Source: Nanaimo Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Nanaimo Daily News
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1608
Author: Connor Whelan
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v12/n282/a01.html

REMOVING THE DESIRE TO TAKE DRUGS IS THE ANSWER

Re: 'Here's an idea just crazy enough to work' ( Daily News, May 19)

I agree with the conclusion of the Nanaimo Daily News editorial. In 
the first place, both tobacco cigarettes and marijuana (cigarettes) 
are made of plant material. They are both smoked. Tobacco has been 
used legitimately, albeit ignorantly, until more recent times when 
the addictive nature of nicotine and the cancer-causing effect of 
smoked tobacco become better understood.

Therefore, replacing one addictive tobacco product with another that 
has a delivery system that is far worse and has the ability to impair 
judgment and affect the brain is looney. The fact that while society 
is tightening restrictions on the use of tobacco, we have a 
pro-marijuana movement bleating about legalization that would be 
laughable if it weren't so serious.

If tobacco was outlawed and marijuana legalized, is it likely that 
criminal organizations might become interested in tobacco products? 
Consider contraband smuggling of cigarettes already taking place off 
of the Mohawk reserve in southern Ontario.

Perhaps we should consider educating our children about the harms of 
all drugs to discourage their use.

Maybe the answer lies in discouraging consumption as a means of 
putting the narco-trafficking organizations out of business thereby 
reducing the mayhem in Mexico, Central and South America, the U.S. and Canada.

Maybe instead of whining like babies for candy, drug users, and those 
sympathetic to them, should consider healthier forms of recreation.

The use of so-called comforting chemicals, legal and illegal, by 
North American society reached epidemic proportions long ago and 
costs lives and billions of dollars every year. Legalizing more of 
them isn't going to change that.

Nor is it the smart thing to do as many vested interests would have 
us believe. Removing the curiosity and desire to take drugs for 
recreation is the answer. Acquiescing to weakness is not.

Connor Whelan

Ladysmith
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom