their effects are beneficial or not.I believe that marijuana should be decoupled from the demonstrably more dangerous drugs such as heroin, cocaine et al., immediately. It is time to stop pandering to those drug warriors who shamelessly use children as propaganda for their own agenda, whether it’s to aggrandize the power, influence and funding of their own particular agency, or their sincere, albeit misguided, desire to shape the country in the form they have decided it should be. These advocates are seemingly even unwilling to accept the possibility that cannabis might possess therapeutic value in cases of nausea, glaucoma, or anorexia. As a result of their efforts, most studies start with a decidedly negative approach, with the burden of proof on the drug, which is certainly in direct opposition to the scientific examination of any experimental new substance looking for FDA approval. Certainly, not least important is that when an adolescent is told as “scientifically proven” fact that pot heroin, LSD, PCP, and crack cocaine and the new synthetics as “Ecstasy” all pose the same danger to his health and psychic well-being, we have immediately risked the danger of losing all credibility with that particular youngster. If he ever does experiment with marijuana, and suffers none of the dire consequences he was warned about, it is not to great a leap of logic to assume that he will subsequently think that what he was told about the other substances is also suspect. Another troubling fact, though documented in 1970, is still true today:The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 reduced Federal penalties for marijuana possession. However, as in the case of similar penalties for the possession or sale of heroin these “mandatory” penalties were in fact rarely invoked; the offender was usually allowed to plead guilty to a lesser offense. When extreme penalties were handed down,...
