USE, ABUSE NOT THE SAME

To the Editor

Re Heidi Hottinger's recent column on drug abuse:

Our culture is one of taboos. In parts of the world where wine is on the
table for kids to be exposed to at an early age there is no mystique. Ditto
for women lying on the beach, topless.

Young kids smoke cigarettes now, more than ever only because they have been
told so often not to.

Why do we not see the difference between alcohol or marijuana use and its
abuse? Is it always abuse because a person is below an arbitrary age limit?
(That age limit should be 18, not 21.)

Ever heard of a person dying of alcohol poisoning because of drinking at a
frat initiation, etc.? It happens. They do not OD on marijuana, but
marijuana is the big taboo. It should be just as legal as a glass of wine.

Alex Hepler,
Kingston, WA