Pubdate: Tue, 26 Aug 2008
Source: Nelson Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 Nelson Daily News
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/288
Note: The newspaper does not have an active website.
Author: Karen Lee

NOT IN SUPPORT OF DRUGS, BUT MORE INFORMED LETTERS

To the Editor:

I wish to raise my voice for more informed letter writing to the 
Nelson Daily News.  Even, perhaps, to the point where people 
correctly refer to the quotes they themselves have put into their 
letters.  But most certainly when they are giving statistical information.

NDN reporter Colin Payne in an article about Shambhala said that "It 
can be argued that many accepted indulgences such as alcohol and junk 
food are equally harmful and much more readily available (than other drugs)."

But a recent letter referring to Mr. Payne's article criticizes him 
and implies that he has said; "Drunkenness is an indulgence."  Mr. 
Payne never said that drunkenness was acceptable.  Again I urge 
people to respond to what writers are actually saying.

I read in this same recent letter to the editor that "scores of 
international studies have shown that one in ten marijuana smokers 
will get schizophrenia later in life."  I thought that this was a 
very alarming statistic, if true.  It turns out that it is not 
true.  There are indeed many studies about the use of marijuana and 
schizophrenia and the thinking of the experts is that it is 
inadvisable for those predisposed to schizophrenia to become habitual 
smokers of marijuana. That is a very different story than that it 
causes schizophrenia. This misconception could have been rectified by 
the letter writer by doling some research.  Fear mongering is irresponsible.

While it is very tragic that anyone would die of a drug overdose "an 
exhaustive search of the literature finds no credible reports of 
deaths induced by marijuana" (ref: DAWN - the US Drug Abuse Warning 
Network). Actually in the United States (the stats I was able to get 
in a hurry) about 400,000 people a year are killed by a drug 
- -tobacco. Aspirin interestingly kills the same number of people as 
heroin. These stats are from the National Centre on Addiction and 
Substance Abuse at Columbia University which anyone can look up on 
the internet.

I am not supporting drug use - I am actually supporting more informed 
letter writing where people do their homework before writing things 
that others could misconstrue as the truth.  I know that letters to 
the editor are a citizen's "right" or "privilege" but using those 
letters to give out misinformation is irresponsible

Karen Lee
Crescent Valley, B.C. 
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart