Pubdate: Wed, 05 Feb 2014
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2014 Andy Gaus
Contact:  http://news.bostonherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Note: Prints only very short LTEs.
Author: Andy Gaus
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v14/n090/a07.html

MAKE MARIJUANA LEGAL

Marijuana is already so available in Massachusetts that ending
prohibition is unlikely to create a new army of stoned slackers on
welfare, as giddily imagined by Howie Carr ("Now we're all dopes,"
Jan. 26). Instead, it will reduce our reliance on the most expensive
form of welfare: mass incarceration.

Despite Carr's protests to the contrary, our jails are swollen with
nonviolent drug offenders who could be working and paying their own
way, but instead are being maintained at taxpayer expense. Not to
mention the people who can't get a job with a drug offense on their
record and end up needing some type of public assistance. As an
indignant taxpayer, Carr should lead the charge to end the legal war
on marijuana as the worst possible use of his tax dollars.

- - Andy Gaus, Boston 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D