Pot blackened (From York Press)

Pot blackened

9:49am Saturday 30th June 2007 in Letters By Reader's letter

FOR the second time you publish comments by Judge Hoffman, declaring that cannabis causes brain damage and memory loss (Cannabis man is hung out to dry, The Press, June 21), and for the second time I will inform you that this is nonsense.

Recently scientists at the Nathan S Kline Institute For Psychiatric Research in the United States reported that they could find "no... evidence of cerebral atrophy or loss of white matter integrity" attributable to cannabis use in the brains of frequent adolescent marijuana users (compared to non-using controls) after performing MRI scans and other advanced imaging technology.

Separate studies assessing the cognitive skills of long-term marijuana smokers have also reported no demonstrable deficits.

I can confirm this, as I, after 25 years of cannabis use have had my memory and cognitive functions tested, and was found no different to non-cannabis users.

To criminalise an adult's personal choice to use a substance no more harmful than coffee of his own free will is a farce and a joke.

If there is no victim, there is no crime.

Steve Clements, The Legalise Cannabis Alliance, Asquith Avenue, York.