In response to the recent letter from Stan White of Dillon, Colo. ("Fight heroin by legalizing pot," March 3), I would point out that the disease of addiction is not drug-specific. I do agree with him that people who buy weed "on the streets" have a better than average opportunity to find "harder drugs" while they are out on "blunt hunt." These people have a disease that is initiated by curiosity and rebellion.
First off, addictive people will find their way to their "ultimate drug of choice" after they try all of the rest. Not a power on this earth will prevent these folks from getting what they want. This disease stays reinforced and maintained by the addict's denial of the problem or the solution.
People who smoke marijuana regularly (at least around here) pay $25 per gram and upward for premier product. Instead of taking one or two hits, they take the entire gram and roll it into a blunt. They'll smoke four-to-seven of these $25 blunts per day, and they'll take any means necessary to continue. This type of use will foster a bevy of criminal behaviors from theft, robbery, distribution of "hard drugs" like cocaine and of course, heroin. Smoking weed at this pace has caused a great many people to go to jail and prison and be convicted of felonies to satisfy their "weed need."
I speak from experience, as I've worked in the addiction treatment field for nearly 20 years and have been in an active ongoing recovery program myself since 1984. I worked 11 years as an internationally certified addiction counselor inside a county jail working with people who got convicted of distributing cocaine and heroin (and other crimes) to fuel their $700-a-week weed habit. These folks will not simply spend $25 per gram in a state store. They'll continue to perpetrate the same crimes, regardless of where they can get their marijuana. When some of my clients from jail started to sell dope and coke, they got curious, tried it themselves and rapidly lost interest in their pot.
Today's marijuana is ultra-potent and as highly addictive and dangerous as any drug out there. It makes users lose focus and concentration and their motivation and productivity land in the toilet after they smoke. I wouldn't like to be next to any driver who is under the influence of today's weed, would you? I hope business and industry continue to make a drug-free lifestyle a condition of employment, regardless of its legality.
I would ask Stan how many people are getting robbed of their product after leaving those state stores selling marijuana? What, there are no addicts in Colorado who won't sell that package on the street for dope or coke?
George Hammerbacher, Catonsville