Pubdate: Fri, 21 Oct 2011
Source: Fort Collins Coloradoan (CO)
Contact: http://www.coloradoan.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Copyright: 2011 The Fort Collins Coloradoan
Website: http://www.coloradoan.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1580
Author: Howard Spivak
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n623/a11.html

IT'S TIME WE LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Kudos to Dan MacArthur for his excellent column, Oct. 12, on the 
subject of banning medical marijuana operations in Fort Collins. I 
find it deeply disturbing that the Concerned Citizens of Fort Collins 
seem so concerned about marijuana and have so little concern about 
the effects of alcohol on our young. Every day in the Coloradoan or 
the Denver Post, we read accounts of fatal accidents involving teens 
who were drinking, but rarely is the cause marijuana.

As MacArthur pointed out, prohibition is "an exercise in futility." 
It is time to legalize pot, and do away with the hypocrisy of 
"medical marijuana." We in this country spend billions of dollars 
annually chasing and incarcerating people whose only crime was 
smoking pot. Driving the weed underground will only serve to further 
exacerbate the jail capacity problem we already have. It is ironic 
that we can look forward, should the ban pass, to further strains on 
our jails just at the same time we are being asked to renew a tax to 
fund these same jails.

For the record, I do not smoke pot, I have never smoked pot and have 
no interest in or intention of smoking it.

Howard Spivak,
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom