Source: Halifax Daily News (Canada) 
Copyright: 1998 The Daily News
Contact:  
Website: http://www.hfxnews.southam.ca/ 
Pubdate: Sat, 3 Oct 1998
Section: Letters to the Editor 
Author: David d'Apollonia

CARTOON ARROGANT

To the editor: 

I write regarding the editorial cartoon in The Daily News Sept. 28. 

I fail to see the significance of having an elderly woman purchasing
marijuana for lumbago, as some kind of witticism. It smacks more of
arrogance and plain bigotry against the proponents of self-medication and
medical-marijuana issues. 

It's shameful medical and scientific objectivity has been compromised to
accommodate the prevailing winds of repression and police state control
that drive the war on drugs around the world, particularly against an herb
such as cannabis. 

Keeping a relatively safe herb such as cannabis illegal is plain stupid and
has done nothing to help children and teenagers keep free from drug-abuse
problems.

In fact, prohibitionist laws encourage crime and mistrust of government and
it is that which sends a clearly wrong signal to children and youth. The
public has been systematically lied to and propagandized for decades!
Enough is enough.

Marijuana never should have been criminalized in the first place.

And that's something few, if any, politicians or media sorcerers are
willing to talk about. 

David d'Apollonia 
Dartmouth 
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Checked-by: Richard Lake