Pubdate: Thu, 07 Feb 2002
Source: Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL)
Copyright: 2002 News-Journal Corp
Contact:  http://www.n-jcenter.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/700
Authors: Jose Melendez, Carol Lynn Bari

CIGARETTES AND MARIJUANA

Thanks to The News-Journal for publishing the Doonesbury comic that drew a 
direct comparison between the dangers of tobacco and marijuana (Jan. 27).

In the past, newspapers, television and radio news broadcasts tended to 
ignore or even suppress the fact that smoking marijuana is safer than 
smoking cigarettes.

That's right. Tobacco cigarettes kill more than 400,000 U.S. citizens each 
year while anti-marijuana laws result in well over 700,000 arrests.

Perhaps if the governor's daughter, Noelle, had been allowed legal access 
to marijuana, she would not have been arrested recently and charged with 
prescription fraud while allegedly trying to buy Xanax. It is "high" time 
that marijuana prohibition is stopped.

Jose Melendez

DeLand

WANTS A FAIR DEBATE

Are we to conclude from this Doonesbury cartoon and its comparison between 
tobacco and marijuana that one is more dangerous than the other? Possibly 
more addictive? Or should our conclusion be that both should be legal (or 
illegal)?

I find it offensive to depict this subject on the comics pages using 
caricatures appealing to children. If the argument includes deaths caused 
by tobacco consumption, should the use of marijuana include its insidious 
nature? The debate must be serious, educational with all facts presented 
accurately, and fair.

Carol Lynn Bari

Flagler Beach
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