Drug users and supporters have tried to deny it by using all sorts of persuasive fallacies, but much to their dismay, marijuana is a gateway drug. First, you don't sidetrack and try to shift the blame elsewhere -- you look at the relationship between marijuana and harder drugs. There is a distinct relationship. Though it varies, about 90 percent of all heroin and cocaine users stepped up from marijuana. Go to the library, read some reputable journals and that's what you'll find. That's not an opinion, that's a fact.

Second, I never mentioned Arab terrorism, as many people implied. It's South American terrorism, which includes but is not limited to kidnapping, village destruction, arson and the like. A friend of mine, a former Colombian soldier, told me of near daily fights with the guerillas. I've heard of skirmishes over marijuana fields, resulting in the deaths of soldiers -- maybe nobody to some college kids "having some fun," but friends to him. Just about every South American country has a liberation army devoted to protecting their drug trade-- the trade that destroys a country's legitimate economy.

Undoubtedly to the dismay of many college campuses and the town of Berkeley, marijuana will never be legal. Hemp won't ever be farmed commercially. I truly do feel sorry for people who think they aren't hurting anybody but themselves, but this is the real world where our actions do have consequences whether we see them or not.