Pubdate: Thu, 10 Jul 2003
Source: Liberal, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2003, Metroland Printing, Publishing and Distributing
Contact:  http://www.yorkregion.com/yr/newscentre/richmondhill/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2347
Author: Tom Pashkov
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

ALCOHOL SETS STANDARD FOR RECREATIONAL DRUGS

It seems alcohol sets the standard by which all other recreational
drugs must be measured in Canada; to do otherwise would be sheer and
blatant hypocrisy.

When comparing alcohol to cannabis, decades of imperical data has
shown there is absolutely no comparison between the two.

When measuring toxicity, neurotoxicity, short and longterm effect of
the two recreational drugs, alcohol is far and away the more
detrimental and toxic substance.

The World Health Organization did a study of the neorotoxicity and
toxicity of a variety of recreational drugs, finding the most deadly
group was cocaine, heroin and alcohol, with cannabis needing its own
catagory of "non-toxic".

It seems government policy on this topic runs contrary to established
science and popular opinion.

The decriminalization legislation falls far short of addressing the
hypocrisy of our current antiquated standard and I think it's very
important to take note of the Liberals, who behave very much like
Conservatives in the upcoming vote.

Though I would not support this bill because it doesn't go far enough
toward a mature policy on drug use, some "Liberals", defined in
Websters Dictionary as "progressive and open minded", in objecting to
progress, in being so closed-minded and in not even supporting this
very small step, are behaving in quite a contradictory fashion.

Tom Pashkov

Richmond Hill
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