Pubdate: Mon, 07 Sep 1998
Date: 07/09/1998
Source: Calgary Sun (Canada)
Author: Glenn Lingle
Website: http://www.canoe.ca/CalgarySun/
Comment: Parenthetical remarks by the Sun editor : headline by hawk

REGARDING YOUR comment to a readers' refutation of the gateway theory,
"fundamental flaw in their logic." You said "Round up the heroin and
crack addicts.

They'll all tell you their first taste of drugs was pot." This isn't
true. They'll tell you that alcohol or nicotine was their first drug.
Actually, the gateway theory is true -- but only because drugs are
illegal.

Pot smokers are exposed to harder drugs by the pushers who are out to
make a buck. It is these unscrupulous people, who say anything to sell
their wares, who are the gateway: "Sorry, all out of pot today, wanna
try some crack?

Naw, you won't get hooked!" Make pot available, as they do in Holland,
and the exposure to the sellers of hard drugs is minimized: Bye-bye
gateway.

Glenn Lingle

(Hello, stonies)