Pubdate: Sun, 16 Feb 2014
Source: Buffalo News (NY)
Copyright: 2014 The Buffalo News
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/GXIzebQL
Website: http://www.buffalonews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/61
Author: Paul R. Libby

WHERE IS EVIDENCE OF HAZARDS OF POT?

In his Feb. column on medical and recreational marijuana, Doug Turner 
makes the statement: "Marijuana is a gateway for hard drugs, and 
plenty hazardous by itself." I have seen this statement many times, 
especially in recent months, but I have never seen any reference to a 
detailed study or studies that bear this out. I do see, from time to 
time, statements like this from a police officer to that effect, but 
remember that statement only covers some drug users.

There is a large marijuana industry out there, and it must cater to a 
large number of users, and probably very few are caught. So there are 
no large-scale studies of marijuana users and whether they progress 
in large numbers to hard drugs. If there are such studies, no one 
seems to use them to try to justify stopping marijuana use.

For the record, I have never used pot, and to the best of my 
recollection, I am not acquainted with pot users.

Paul R. Libby Tonawanda
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom