Pubdate: Fri, 13 Jul 2001
Source: Kelowna Capital News (BC)
Copyright: 2001, Kelowna Capital News Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.kelownacapnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1294
Author: K. Hamilton
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1131/a04.html

PAIN FROM LIFETIME WATCHING POT ABUSE

To the editor:

I would like to thank Greg Williams for proving my point that users and 
promoters of pot are a group of immature people acting like spoiled children.

As for his comment "tell that to the judges who smoke it, and law 
enforcement officers, lawyers and doctors''. You are only guessing at that 
information and trying to pass it off as factual.

I would also like to reply to his assumption my opinion was from an 
uneducated, selfish background on the subject.

I grew up (29 years) with a parent that is a chronic abuser of pot, who 
came from addicts himself, therefore providing me with one set of 
grandparents who were also abusers.

I watched the pain my non-abuser mother went through and I lived the 
confusion of my father's mood swings, loss of reality, lies and distortions.

I went on, not knowing any better at the time, to date a marijuana abuser 
for many years and of course to have had many very good friends in the same 
circle then.

My family was a well respected, well known family that did not lack any 
material things so that was supposed make-up for the disfunction.

I can tell you, I am regrettably far more experienced on the subject than I 
care to be.

I know first-hand the damage it can do to children, families, friends and 
loved ones.

I don't hold anything personally against casual users or even abusers, you 
can do whatever you want in your own home, but legalizing it is only one 
more huge waste of the honest man's money and so detrimental to families.

K. Hamilton,

Westbank
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens