Pubdate: 14 Mar 1999 Source: Calgary Sun (Canada) Copyright: 1999, Canoe Limited Partnership. Contact: http://www.canoe.ca/CalgarySun/ Forum: http://www.canoe.ca/Chat/home.html Author: Scynthia Ross Comment: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor; headline by newshawk GRANT HILL CONDITIONED I APPLAUD the government on their medical marijuana announcement. However, Grant Hill raised an important issue. What about recreational marijuana? Well, what about it? Let's face it, there are a lot of drugs available to teenagers to get a high. Alcohol, tobacco, ecstasy, LSD, magic mushrooms, marijuana, gasoline, and glue to name a few. I agree teenagers should not take any drugs but they do and of all the drugs available to teenagers, marijuana could be the safest. Hill made me think of the monkey experiment. Put a group of monkeys in a room with a chair. Every time a monkey gets on the chair, spray the whole group with a fire hose. After a while the monkeys learn not to get on the chair and to keep their buddies off that chair. What was interesting about this experiment was with successive generations of monkeys they still kept their buddies off the chair. They did not know why. They had never been sprayed with the fire hose, they just knew not to get on that chair because something dreadful would happen. Hill is telling us not to get on that chair. Why? He does not know why, only that is what he has been told. Prohibition does not work, people will smoke cannabis whether it is legal or not. The government has no right to dictate to adults what they can or can not put into their bodies. Scynthia Ross (Yes they can, they do and they should. Care for some thalidomide, Scynthia?) - --- MAP posted-by: Mike Gogulski