Pubdate: Fri,  2 Nov 2001
Source: The Press of Atlantic City (NJ)
Copyright: 2001 South Jersey Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.pressplus.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/29
Author: Paul Merkoski
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PRIORITIES, PRIORITIES: TERRORISM, NOT POT

Two recent items in the news suggest that some people in positions of 
authority still don't get it:

Last month in California, a state where voters legalized marijuana use for 
people who are sick or dying, federal agents uprooted a marijuana garden 
run by patients, seized the records of a doctor who recommended the drug 
and raided a West Hollywood "cannabis club" that city officials had helped 
set up.

The raids are "indicative that we have not lost our priorities in other 
areas since Sept. 11," a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman said.

No?

Then there's this item: Six Middle Eastern men carrying box cutters and 
photographs of both a nuclear-power plant in Florida and the Trans-Alaska 
Pipeline were stopped by police in the Midwest last week and then - 
incredibly - released by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents.

FBI Director Robert Mueller was said to be furious. FBI agents are now 
searching for the men.

These news stories are unrelated - except in this respect: This nation is 
in a fight for its continued existence, and some people who should know 
better still don't get it.

Yes, federal drug laws do supersede the pro-marijuana voter initiatives in 
eight states - but certainly, the U.S. Justice Department has more 
important things to do right now than bust sick people for smoking marijuana.

Furthermore, the simple fact that this nation has legions of dogs specially 
trained to detect marijuana but only a fraction of the vaccine doses that 
would be needed to protect the country in the event of a smallpox attack 
speaks volumes about how skewed priorities have been for some time.

Our advice: Lay off the cannabis clubs for the moment and dispatch those 
federal agents (and maybe the pot-sniffing dogs) to the search for the six 
Middle Eastern men with box cutters and photographs of the nuclear power 
plant and the Alaskan pipeline.

To borrow a phrase from a presidential campaign of yore: It's the 
terrorism, stupid.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens