POT PROPAGANDA MISLEADS CHILDREN

To the Editor:

Re: Writer has his facts wrong

The person who has serious fact problems is you Mrs. (Joyce) Roth. I
never wrote one word about that wonderful poem. Best read my letter again.

Writing the Leader and trying to claim I have no facts, when your own
facts about what I have written is so far off, you should be embarrassed.

My point in my letter, was that using a ghost writer and an unnamed
person in a oddly written story about such a important subject that
effects your community is counterproductive. Such the same as
propaganda is used everyday in the news to make children think cannabis is bad.

Then children try it and see it's really not that bad ... so then
they think to themselves, well if they lied about cannabis they must
be lying about meth

If you got from my letter that I am not concerned about meth use,
again you're not reading properly. I am more aware of the problem
then you think.

The gateway theory is now debunked, and they call it a stepping-stone
theory. My facts come from the Report of the Senate Special Committee
on Illegal Drugs and it says, "Theory suggesting a sequential pattern
in involvement in drug use from nicotine to alcohol, to cannabis and
then hard drugs. The theory rests on a statistical association
between the use of hard drugs and the fact that these users have
generally used cannabis as their first illicit drug. This theory has
not been validated by empirical research and is considered outdated."

The senate report is available to anyone who wants it, just write the
Senate and they would be happy to send one out. You could also go to
the Internet and look for this study.

Cannabis use, a stepping stone to other drugs?

There are the cases of Amsterdam's Peter Cohen and Arjan Sas. I could
go on and on but that's too long for a LTE. Another important fact is
as long as cannabis is illegal, you will feed organized crime. And
they bring these other drugs into the lives of your children. I would
suggest you get on the Internet Mrs. Roth and many others and Google
yourself some real facts.

Anthony Jensen

Vancouver, B.C.