Ellenpoly, thanks for your sentiments - you're so right in that it is the hardest thing to see your flesh and blood suffer in this way, but in your defence of Cannabis as a harmless substance you are wrong, wrong, wrong, and I can assure you that, if you were in my position, you would curse it and those misguided fools who defend it, just as I do.

It's nothing to do with simply 'picking on' Cannabis as a convenient handle on which to hang the blame (I blame myself, but that's another, private, story). The pot-heads can deny until they're blue in the face, but it won't alter the truth - hard-drug abusers seldom start with the hard drugs, they seldom start with alcohol, they almost always start on the stuff that's held out to them as harmless fun, Cannabis. I've had a lot of experience with these people as a Youth-Worker, I've watched their careers in drugs start with pot and slowly (or sometimes unbelievably quickly) move to other substances.

Why do you feel that my anger (which isn't actually anger, more a deep all-consuming sadness) prevents me from seeing what's right in front of my face? The fact that I've witnessed the dreadful things that users of this 'harmless substance' can and do progress to makes it far easier for me to see the truth than those who have never been through it. I'm not blinded by the irrational love affair you people have with Cannabis, I see it for what it is - a wolf in sheep's clothing for which there's no other reason for its consumption other than to disturb one's brain activity (yes, it does that for medicinal purposes too, and I'd accept its use when prescribed by a doctor for a medical condition).

If you've been a Cannabis-user (in the non-medical sense) and you got away with it, didn't get hooked in to 'harder' stuff, I'm glad for you - you were lucky. But some, too many, don't.

John