Pubdate: Wed, 12 Feb 2014
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2014 Allan Erickson
Contact: http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/#contribute-a-letter
Website: http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Author: Allan Erickson

PROHIBITION, NOT POT, IS PROBLEM

I appreciated The Register-Guard's decision to print Brian Michaels'
Feb. 6 column, "Phobia of legalizing marijuana afflicts America."

I mentioned to Michaels once about seeing all the "Don't Tread On Me"
flags at ranch and farm gates in south-central Oregon. I told him I
thought those good folks are at opposite ends of the same circle with
cannabis legalization advocates, when they should be standing shoulder
to shoulder.

His response was a wry remark: "When those don't-tread-on-me people
realize that the government is a bigger problem than the hippies, we've won."

Prohibition is the problem, not pot. It was the hate-pot-at-all-costs
crowd that intentionally hid a government study conducted in the 1970s
that showed cannabis to be an effective cancer fighter. That study
remained buried for two and a half decades.

The prohibition of cannabis truly is a big lie. All of it.
Legalization (aka "regulation") advocates are guilty only of
enthusiasm. The government and its anti-drug agents and agencies are
guilty of a long list of crimes.

ALLAN ERICKSON Eugene 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D