I just wanted to respond to a few of the facts regarding marijuana proposed by the article in Monday’s paper.  First, it is true that marijuana has not caused death due to an overdose.  But marijuana has been directly related to many deaths that are reported as “accidents.”  This is because of the obvious effects marijuana has on your brain. The fact that marijuana has not been proven to cause long term brain problems and that marijuana is not addictive is BS, to put it bluntly.  Studies show that chronic users experiencing withdrawal after just one day have higher levels of stress response (release of cortisol) which can cause a number of problems.  Also affected are the nerve cells in the brain that secrete Dopamine (similar to the affects of cocaine). Studies also show that chronic users have significantly lower IQ scores than non-users, suggesting loss of logical reasoning and common sense. Other effects of chronic marijuana smokers include shrunken areas in the brain, the hippocampus and the amygdala, both of which are directly associated with memory.  In fact, the hippocampus is one of the first areas of the brain to show damage in Alzheimer’s disease. Anxiety and depression are also effects of the drug, as well as hypertriglyceridemia, or high triglycerides in the blood, which can lead to more problems, including atherosclerosis and pancreatitis.  This is of course an indirect effect due to the “munchies” people get from smoking.  As far as the “correlation does not prove causation” goes, that’s a load of crap.  Ask anyone who’s been involved in multiple drug use what the first drug they tried was.  Anyway, I just wanted to add some information to what I thought was a slightly skewed article of “facts.”Nicholas O’ConnellBiochemistry Alumnus