Letters to the Editor
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Addiction? To cannabis? Dude, it's just a plant!
Cary, I usually read your advice with a combination of awe and delight at your empathy, tolerance, sensitivity, and plain good sense. But your advice to the wife of an occasional pot smoker was astonishingly wrong-headed. Your advice is more appropriate to the user of a dangerous drug like metamphetamine, and not a beneficial medicinal herb like cannabis. Admittedly, recreational cannabis use is illegal, for reasons which are problematic in themselves. However, in many States, possession of small quantities is not a chargable offence. And, as a practical matter, being charged criminally for pot possession in small quantities for personal use is unlikely in most jurisdictions.
You refer to the husband as an "addict" - and to his behavior as "addictive behavior". Because he smokes a little pot on the weekend from time to time? Because it helps him quit smoking and relax and feel the love of his family in the comfort of his home? Would it be better, in your view, if he graced the family dinner table with cigarette smoke and alcohol consumption, reducing himself to a stinking slobbering drunk?
Science has demonstrated that cannabis is at worst habit-forming, and certainly not addictive. It's medicinal benefits are legion, and recognized in several States and in Canada with legally-sanctioned medicinal usage for a variety of complaints from MS to glaucoma to cancer to depression. That it continues to be illegal for recreational use in the face of overwhelming evidence of its benign nature encourages criminal activity and undermines respect for the law and its guardians. And your pandering to the neurotic fears of this poor man's wife by encouraging her to get help for his "addiction" is not only cruel, it is wrong.
You refer to yourself as an "addict". Perhaps the cannabis could help you with this problem. It has helped many alcoholics overcome their dangerous addiction and become happier, more productive, and better parents, spouses, and friends. Just because something is made illegal by the ignorant and cruel does not make it a bad thing.
You have the audience and the ability to change minds and change attitudes. You abused your fortunate position with the atrocious advice in this column.
I would be happy to discuss this further with you.
For obvious reasons, pseudonimously yours,
divadab