Pubdate: Sat, 28 Feb 2009
Source: Monterey County Herald (CA)
Copyright: 2009 Monterey County Herald
Contact:  http://www.montereyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/273
Author: Jeffrey Van Middlebrook

WANTS MARIJUANA LAWS OVERTURNED

Most of us never really bother to question the morality of our laws,
so some laws that have no moral underpinning continue to be enforced,
thereby turning people into criminals for actions that are not
criminal in the spirit of the word.

One of my family members has been victimized by the antiquated and
inane marijuana laws in this country. Let me qualify myself as a
non-imbiber of weed, not since my youth over 30 years ago. It is
expected that pot smokers will support the decriminalization of weed,
but some of us whose thinking is not clouded by "Purple Haze" have
come to realize that there are no sound scientific/medical arguments
to support the continued persecution and prosecution of marijuana
cultivation, sale, and usage.

At the risk of sounding cynical, I truly believe that the real reason
that the legal bureaucracy persists in maintaining the criminality of
marijuana is job security. As long as the legal bureaucrats (cops,
lawyers, judges, prison staff, etc.) can keep busting those who imbibe
in pot at any level, they can keep the jails full of bodies that
should not be there, and keep extorting fees from those bodies.

Sadly, there is plenty of real crime out there in society to keep our
jails full and keep the paychecks flowing, yet the bureaucracy
continues to victimize citizens who don't deserve to be.

Jeffrey Van Middlebrook

Pacific Grove
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin