California will vote in November on a proposal to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol or tobacco, but local legislators said any similar initiative in Indiana remains remote.

"The current system is an utter failure," said Aaron Smith, Marijuana Policy Project California policy director. "More teens are smoking marijuana than cigarettes."

If approved by the people, the proposal would allow adults 21 and older to posses up to an ounce of marijuana and for the state, along with counties and cities, to tax marijuana sales.

[continues 333 words]

California should legalize marijuana.

I can already hear people's fingers typing on keyboards for letters to the editor, but hear me out. I'm not basing my assessment on an obsession for Mary Jane, but from a real belief in the economic power of the reefer.

Last week, California's secretary of state certified a November vote on a ballot measure that would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana. The new campaign for legalization does not focus on altering the social stigma surrounding the drug but highlights its potential cash benefits. It's a bold, intelligent move for those in favor of legalizing marijuana.

[continues 768 words]

In my work as an emergency physician and as a county coroner, I frequently order tests to determine whether a person has illicit drugs in their blood or urine. While I am not naive enough to think that all people will turn out to be clean and sober, I am amazed at how many people have a positive test for cannabinoids, which are the active ingredients in marijuana (Cannabis sativa).

I recognize that there are some legitimate medical uses for cannabinoids. However, the people with the positive tests are generally not suffering from nausea, vomiting, pain, loss of appetite, asthma, glaucoma, nor spasticity. They have been consuming marijuana for other reasons.

[continues 618 words]

Every day on the news we hear again that there just isn't enough money for "government" to do its job. There is such a simple solution to the problem, but politicians just don't have the courage to tackle it. Unfortunately, simple idealism stands in the way of that solution.

The current national attitude toward drugs is nothing if not idealistic. It's not effective at all, but it is indeed idealistic. Of course, no one should abuse drugs, but laws against it do not prevent drug abuse. Nearly every schoolchild can tell you drugs are readily available. Oddly enough, for all its idealism, the United States offers the biggest market for illegal drugs in the world.

[continues 283 words]

Fourteen states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and nearly 100 million Americans older than 12 have admitted to smoking it. Weed is more visible and available than ever these days, and thanks to the Internet, advocacy for its legalization has never been so vocal.

After the Ogden Memo was issued last year, in which President Barack Obama instructed federal prosecutors to stop pursuing drug cases against medical marijuana patients, many lobbying for marijuana legalization across the country began feeling as though this would be the first administration to address the issue seriously. After all, unlike Bill Clinton, Obama did inhale, and in his own words, has done so "frequently" in the past. Though he insists that a legalization-regulation-taxation trifecta wouldn't help the still struggling economy, he has publicly supported the prescription of pot by physicians to treat certain ailments.

[continues 683 words]

To the Editor:

Nobody in the history of the world has overdosed from marijuana. Many people in America depend on medical marijuana for their medical conditions and symptoms such as glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, nausea, epilepsy, etc.

It's sad how people with chronic pain and deathly illness are deprived of the only medicine that will work for them.

Prescription medication can become very addicting, and cause death from building up a tolerance, requiring the patient to use more than prescribed.

[continues 211 words]

I'll admit to being one of the multitude of fans who have made shows like "NCIS" and "CSI" such hits. It isn't that I don't recognize how unrealistic they are; no publicly financed lab could afford such cutting-edge equipment even if someone invented it. But I love watching the search for hard evidence, and the characters' willingness to abide by what that evidence shows even when the result is to exonerate some really unattractive suspect.

Wouldn't it be nice if those we elect to make policy were similarly devoted to evidence-based decision-making?

[continues 419 words]

MADISON, Ind. - The high school girlfriends weren't known as troublemakers. One was a cheerleader, another a soccer player and the third grew up working on her family's farm.

But the Madison Consolidated High School seniors found themselves shivering on a winter night three years ago in a deserted church parking lot, surrounded by police, being questioned about drugs - and then strip searched.

"We were all so scared," one of them, Kristy Lessley, said in the first interview the women have granted since the incident Jan. 19, 2007. "We just froze."

[continues 1189 words]

The criminal justice system in this country is broken. We have a greater percentage, by far, of our population in jail than any of the other western democracies in the world.

We sentence more persons to the death penalty than any other western nations. The percentage of adult, black males in our prison system is a national disgrace and a disaster.

As I've argued on these pages previously, we need to decriminalize the possession of drugs for personal use and legalize, plus tax, their proper distribution.

[continues 244 words]

PLYMOUTH - The message that Plymouth sixth graders learned during the nine-week course of DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) may be the most important lesson of them all.

The formal graduation for this year's class was held at Riverside Intermediate Thursday. The program was launched in Plymouth in 1989.

Officer Mark Owen has been the DARE instructor over the last several years. During the graduation ceremony, Owen said, "There are more personal family stories now than ever before."

Each of the students in the class was asked to write an essay on what they had learned. A panel then chose 12 of the authors to receive special recognition at the ceremony.

[continues 333 words]

To the editor:

The solution to overcrowding at jails and prisons everywhere is simple: Just decriminalize the possession of substances for personal use.

It's far past time we realize the policies we have been pursuing for years have not worked and will never work!

It's costing us billions of dollars every year to pursue failed policies. Isn't it time to change?

Ray Andersen

Newburgh

[end]

Overcoming Addiction Has Proven Difficult For Many People Sentenced To Drug Court; Those Who Succeed Praise The Program.

MUNCIE -- If the Guinness Book contained a category for most expensive single drug binge, Jeff Branham might very well own the record.

By Branham's account, he smoked almost $20,000 worth of crack cocaine in an 11-day period, a bender that left little time for sleep or anything else but getting high.

What's worse, he financed the drugs by forging checks from his 83-year-old father's savings account, drawing the attention of authorities who charged him with 66 felony crimes.

[continues 970 words]

Law Enforcement Has Fought The Constantly Evolving Threat Of Meth Addiction And Manufacturing Since Its First Appearance In 1988.

ELKHART -- Less than a year after a series of significant arrests in 2005, members of Elkhart County's undercover law enforcement unit concluded they had crippled a drug-trafficking organization importing Mexican methamphetamine into the area.

But in that eight months, the market for meth had been established. The drug began affecting Elkhart County in a violent new way. Small, volatile and dangerous homemade labs began cranking out meth.

[continues 1405 words]

DENVER -- Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is -- involve medicine.

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana. Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students.

[continues 669 words]

We tend to forget as a country that our longest and most costly war has been the war on drugs. Many people believe that this is a long-failing battle, and I tend to agree.

This year, drug arrests are expected to exceed 1.8 million people, and law enforcement made more arrests for drug abuse violations than any other crime in the past two years.

In May, the head of the National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, said that he wanted to eliminate the idea of a "war on drugs" and instead focus on treatment as opposed to incarceration in order to reduce the drug problem.

[continues 382 words]

The most surprising response to Attorney General Eric Holder's recent announcement that the federal government would cease raids or arrests in states where medical marijuana is permitted is the general lack of response.

Sure, Holder was simply making good on a pledge delivered by candidate Barrack Obama.

But on another level, the administration's announcement could change the entire balance, or some would say historic imbalance, where drug enforcement and punishments are concerned.

Politics in practice demands nothing less than a tough posture against crime.

[continues 312 words]

WASHINGTON -- In an act of merciful sanity, the Obama administration has made good on its promise to stop interfering with states that allow the medical use of marijuana.

Clink-clink, hear-hear, salud, cheers, et cetera, et cetera.

The announcement from Attorney General Eric Holder surely comes as a relief to the many who rely on cannabis to ease suffering from various ailments. This new, relaxed approach doesn't let drug traffickers off the hook. It merely means that 14 states that now provide for some medical marijuana uses no longer need fear federal raids on dispensaries and users operating under state law.

[continues 667 words]

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Indiana's prisons are experiencing an increase in inmate assaults and attacks on staff -- a trend the state's prison chief blames largely on overcrowding caused by inadequate funding for new beds.

In the first half of 2009, Indiana's prisons had 514 inmate-on-inmate attacks, 62 of which caused serious injuries. That compares with 719 such attacks, 101 with serious injuries, during all of 2008, The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne reported on Sunday.

Edwin Buss, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction, said the shortage of bed space in parts of some state prisons has created a volatile situation.

[continues 475 words]

To the editor:

I wrote to you in April asserting that Indiana and the United States should drop the war on drugs. Instead of criminalization, we should regulate certain drugs as we do alcohol.

Since then, lawmakers in 14 states have begun considering the legalization of marijuana.

Since that time 14 states are considering legalization of marijuana. The Obama administration has floated the idea as well.

Recently, a columnist in the The Guardian newspaper of London called for an end to the drug war: "The anti-drug crusade will go down as among the greatest foibles of modern times," John Gray wrote. "The fact is that the costs of drug prohibition now far outweigh any possible benefits the policy may bring."

Empty our prisons of drug users. Save money. Use money to treat, not imprison.

F. Wesley Bowers

Evansville

[end]

As a retired Michigan police officer, I heartily agree with the comments of Alex Derry (Readers' Forum, June 22).

Many of us in law enforcement would appreciate the major drop in crime when we repeal this prohibition. In a post-prohibition world we could do an effective job protecting our children from predators and all of us from the deadly DUI. Our troops in Afghanistan would no longer be killed by bullets bought by the profits from the drug trade.

Someone please tell me all the positive benefits, good outcomes of this "Modern Prohibition" which make it worth keeping. I never read or hear of any.

Officer Howard Wooldridge (retired)

Founding Member of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc)

Washington, D.C.

[end]