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The Biggest Danger

Your April 7 article “Straight Talk on Heroin, Opioid Use in Branford” on the dramatic increase in opioid/heroin overdoses perpetuates the discredited claim that marijuana is a gateway drug to subsequent drug abuse. No such cause and effect has ever been established. If it did exist, then the big increase in opioid/heroin use should have been preceded by a big increase in marijuana use. No such increase has been documented. If marijuana is labeled a “gateway drug,” perhaps mother’s milk should be labeled a “gateway beverage” to alcoholism.

The biggest danger to young people from recreational marijuana use is the criminal and academic penalties imposed as part of our war on drugs. Legalization of recreational marijuana use in Colorado and Oregon has gone remarkably smoothly. It has led to significant increases in badly needed state revenues.

It is time to get sensible. It is time to legalize recreational marijuana use in Connecticut. Prohibition doesn’t work. It enriches criminals and criminalizes thousands and thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Jonathan Clark

Branford