cannabisnews.com: Peter McWilliam's Letter To The LA Times!





Peter McWilliam's Letter To The LA Times!
Posted by FoM on June 17, 1999 at 07:11:11 PT
Source: LA Times
Thank you for pointing out in your excellent editorial (June 16, "Booze and Its Backers") that the Partnership for a Drug-Free America "is a coalition of advertising firms...that have benefited handsomely from the $1 billion the alcohol industry spent last year on promotions."
The PDFA is a Political Action Committee founded and funded by the alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries with the specific aim of keeping marijuana illegal.While no drug is completely safe, among alcohol (which kills 200,000 each year), tobacco (500,000), pharmaceuticals (100,000), and marijuana (not one recorded overdose, allergic, or cancer death in 5,000 years), marijuana is the safest. Further, according to the recently published Institute of Medicine report, marijuana is the least addictive of the four, not a gateway drug, and the only potential health danger is in the smoke, not the psychoactive chemicals. Further still, marijuana can be grown in any backyard or windowbox for almost nothing. Unable to compete in a free market with such a intoxicant, the legal pleasure-chemical companies and their advertising agencies established the PDFA just about the time then-President Carter told Congress marijuana should be regulated, as are alcohol and cigarettes.I have no problem with PACs, but I do have a problem when $1 billion in taxpayer money is turned over to one helping it maintain its government-enforced monopoly on pleasure.Sincerely,Peter McWilliamshttp://www.mcwilliams.com/News article found by Cryote!Thank You, Cryote!
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