Regarding your editorial "The President Inhales" (Jan. 22): For the president to engage in such discourse about marijuana is distressing. He shows the same lack of critical thinking as do most people who claim that it is not more dangerous than alcohol. Absent from his statement is the fact that marijuana is often only one drug of many in the user's pharmacy. The president's words will certainly give permission to multitudes of people already abusing or dependent on the drug.
As a board-certified physician in addiction medicine and a recovering addict, I see the damage that marijuana causes patients every day. Comments such as Mr. Obama's make the process of helping people recover all the more difficult.
Skip Sviokla, M.D. ABAM