Pubdate: Sat, 12 May 2001
Source: Maple Ridge News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 Maple Ridge News
Contact:  http://www.mapleridgenews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1328
Author: Jeremie Geschke

DON'T LEGALIZE POT

Editor, The News:

Re: Legalize it, U.S. think tank says (letters, April 28).

Marijuana is bad for you. Cannabis, (the proper name for marijuana)
contains over 360 different chemicals. If you smoke pot, you're more
likely to be one of the younger people showing up with different types
of cancer at a younger age because of the higher amount of carcinogens
in marijuana, because pot smokers don't use filters and because pot
smokers inhale more deeply and hold the smoke in longer than cigarette
smokers.

Pot lowers your self-esteem, slows your hand-eye coordination, dulls
your short-term memory and takes away enthusiasm and self-motivation
permanently. The main chemical in pot, THC, takes about a month to
leave a person's system, so even if you're only smoking pot on the
weekend your mind and body will never be free of the effects of the
drugs in pot.

It seems to me that if you legalize it, the economy will go down
because people won't work (or do anything for that matter), just smoke
pot. More people will have cancers at younger ages and will need more
health care, driving taxes up. Overall, this is a bad thing to do, so
don't do it.

Jeremie Geschke, age 13

Maple Ridge
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MAP posted-by: Andrew