Pubdate: Mon, 14 Aug 2000
Source: Otago Daily Times (New Zealand)
Copyright: Allied Press Limited, 2000
Contact:  P.O. Box 181, 52-66 Lower Stuart Street, Dunedin, New Zealand
Website: http://www2.odt.co.nz
Author: Jason Baker-Sherman
Note: Headline supplied by newshawk

CANNABIS DISCRIMINATION

Jenny Bede (26.7.00) is quite right in saying that the written assignment punishment was an appalling case of discrimination. Asking a cannabis smoker to write out the marijuana chapter in The Great Brain Robbery is highly offensive as the book presumes that marijuana use is bad and then manipulates the evidence to prove this, something the prohibitionists have been doing for the past 70 years. It is extremely shameful that the discrimination against the use of this medicinal wonder is in fact still institutionalised in this country today.

Therefore it was disturbing to go to our public library and find that all eight copies of Tom Scott's pernicious book were out spreading their misinformation and perverting our society. Fortunately, the library does have one copy of Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts - A review of the scientific evidence, by L. Zimmer, PhD and J. Morgan, MD, in which all the scientific evidence that is presented by the prohibitionists to justify their prejudice is debunked. The Great Brain Robbery has a bibliography of 24 books and yet it covers 11 different drug groups. Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts uses information from references whose listing takes up one-third of the book's 240 pages to expose the myths that any cannabis user knows as lies.

Jason Baker-Sherman, Dalmore
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