From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!cbosg!cbosgd!mark
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: Refresh on Addiction Discussion
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2349
Posted: Sat Jun 12 15:12:47 1982
Received: Sun Jun 13 04:49:39 1982
References: utcsrgv.382

For an interesting discussion on which drugs are harmful and which
are legal, read "Licit and Illicit Drugs", by Consumers Union (the
same people that do Consumer Reports).  It costs $4 and can be ordered
with the coupon in the back of any CR.  (It's a paperback book - over
an inch thick.)

They take a view that I was quite surprised at.  They come down very
hard on three drugs: Alcohol, Nicotine (e.g. cigarettes) and Caffeine.
On the other hand, they claim that certain drugs which are illegal
and thought to be seriously harmful are not so bad.  (Most people feel
this way about Marijuana, but they lump Cocaine and Heroin in this
category too!)  The book is very thorough and covers many drugs, but
is out of date (1972) so it doesn't cover certain modern drugs like PCP.

CU shows lots and lots of serious research and is very scholarly in
coming to these conclusions.  I recommend it as must reading for
anyone who takes drugs, or who has children of the appropriate age.
In fact, such children probably ought to read it too - being informed
is very important.  I'm sure nearly everyone who reads this has been
to high school and college in the last 20 years and knows what the
attitudes on drugs are in these places, and realizes that you just
can't ignore this issue and hope it will never come up.  (I'd be
interested to hear from anyone who has recently attended a private
school, or who has a drug-age child in such a school, such as a
church school, as to whether such things come up there as well as
public schools, and if the age bracket is different.)

Also, I have recently heard (Ann Landers?  I'm not sure where) that
recent evidence has shown real problems for regular marijuana users
that makes it look much worse than tobacco.  I'd be interested to
know if this was just that year's quota of unscientific scare stories
to keep it from being legalized, or if there has been real, reproduced,
accepted data that shows real problems.  I forget the nature of the
problem - reproductive or genetic damage or some such thing, I think.

	Mark