Wouter:
I have no doubt that your brother had problems and I truly emphathize and in no way mean to belittle or minimize your brother's difficulties. Indeed, research has borne out that some people react to cannabis with feelings of paranoia or panic. These people shouldn't use it. However, from a scientific view, there is no comparison. Cannabis is far safer than alcohol. Alcohol is a poison that regulary kills people. In the entire history of recorded medicine, not a single human has ever died from cannabis poisoning (even aspirin poisoning kills 1000-1500 people in the U.S. each year). Some people are very quick to point to cannabis as the source of an individual's psychological problems, (consistent with the continual stream of outright propoganda being disseminated by the U.S. gov't), yet there is no scientifically provable cause and effect relationship. You could just as easily blame an individual's behavior on milk. Every serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, toturer, etc., used milk before they later committed their atrocities. The plain truth is that cannabis is a remarkably safe, medically effective, non-narcotic mild euphoric. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not for everyone, and it CERTAINLY not a valid reason to put a human being in a cage. And considering the wide range of relief it promises to people with a multitude of medical conditions, it is downright criminal that the U.S. gov't actively seeks to suppress scientific research into cannabis' potential medicinal uses
Bill, tgo