I'm confused by the current war against synthetic drugs. Apparently, these new legal lethal drugs are more dangerous and deadly than the illegal ones they mimic. It's sadly ironic that the young man who died from smoking artificial marijuana ("Another death tied to synthetic drug use," Sept. 11) had been arrested for possession of the relatively benign herbal medicine and switched to the nasty chemical substitute because it was legal.
If the government really cared about people's health and safety, it would legalize natural marijuana, which has been proven to have medicinal value and is legal in several states when prescribed by a physician.
How many people have died from smoking marijuana? None that I know of. Scientific research shows that marijuana smokers don't even get lung cancer. Tobacco causes almost half a million deaths a year. And the dangers of alcohol are well-documented, involving many deaths, diseases, tragic accidents, violence and crimes of all kinds. Yet tobacco and booze are legal.
The government and the news media create drug epidemics to control us and to keep us in fear. They introduce and promote poisonous, dangerous dope like cocaine, crack and methamphetamine. Now the new drugs are synthetic. During the Cold War, the CIA allowed the Mafia to smuggle and sell heroin in return for fighting Communists. In the 1960s the spy agency experimented with LSD, intending to use it as a weapon or truth serum, a tool of torture and interrogation. They were paying people, friends of mine, to take acid at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
I find it strange the News Tribune gives so much coverage to the synthetic-drug phenomenon, providing free publicity (free advertising) to the shops that sell the poisonous products. The business is flourishing.
