Pubdate: Sat, 08 Jul 2006
Source: Lahontan Valley News (NV)
Copyright: 2006 Lahontan Valley News
Contact: 
http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/misc?url=/misc/letter/index.pbs
Website: http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3456
Author: Al Engleman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

TIME FOR LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA IS NOW

As a member of Nevada's Marijuana Policy Project from the start of 
this initiative, it is with gratefulness that I thank, and most of 
all laud, your recent editorial in support of our efforts. Your 
editorial has received national attention.

Any rational person would concede that our present laws don't work, 
and as is the case with medical marijuana, have become so cumbersome 
so as to deny medicine to our sick citizens. It seems we have more to 
fear from knee-jerk authoritarian government than we do from pot. 
Even the August Federal Probation Report has stated that the biggest 
danger in using and possessing marijuana came from the laws against it.

The legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote long ago that we must 
always apply scrutiny to our laws, lest they become anachronistic and 
useless and then lead to the law's mockery, due only from former 
convention or compulsion.

The time for marijuana's legalization has come. Let's all vote yes 
this November, and in doing so, send a loud message to those folks in 
Washington, that yes, even in "rural" Nevada, we know a bad law when 
we see one.

Al Engleman

Fallon
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman