Pubdate: Sun, 11 May 2014
Source: Daily Reflector (Greenville, NC)
Copyright: 2014 Daily Reflector
Contact:  http://www.reflector.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1456
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v14/n405/a04.html
Author: Stan White

POT PROHIBITION AIDS ADDICTIONS

If North Carolina and American citizens honestly want to "address the 
root problems contributing to prescription drug abuse" and hard drug 
addiction rates in the future (Editorial: Pitt fights overdose deaths, 
May 5, 2014) end cannabis (marijuana) prohibition. An important reason 
to end cannabis prohibition that doesn't get mentioned is because it 
increases hard-drug addiction rates. It puts citizens who choose to use 
the relatively safe plant into contact with people who often also sell 
hard drugs.

Further, government claims heroin is no worse than cannabis and
methamphetamine and cocaine is less harmful by insisting cannabis is a
Schedule I substance alongside heroin, while methamphetamine and
cocaine are only Schedule II substances.

How many citizens have tried cannabis and realized it is not nearly as
dangerous as claimed and believed other substances must not be either
only to find themselves addicted to hard drugs? Can the message from
cannabis prohibitionists be any worse for vulnerable citizens?

STAN WHITE

Dillon, Colo.
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