WASHINGTON - The time is at hand for the Obama administration to stop dithering, to take a clear position on the rights of Washington state and Colorado, and by precedent all others, to experiment with legalized marijuana.

That's what Govs. Jay Inslee of Washington and John Hickenlooper of Colorado are asking the Justice Department to do - even though they personally opposed the marijuana legalization measures their voters approved in November.

The governors insist they can make their states' new laws work well through responsible regulations that license, regulate and tax the production and sale of marijuana. New state labeling laws, say supporters, will also remove confusion and dangerous use levels by showing the potency in terms of THC, the psychoactive component of the cannabis plant, analogous to the labeling of alcoholic beverages.

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Date published: 4/21/2013 'Forbidden fruit' is marijuana's allure Thanks for publishing Robert Sharpe's thoughtful letter: "Marijuana prohibition: A catastrophic failure" [April 4].

I'd like to add that if we want as many children as possible to use marijuana, we should keep it as a criminalized substance. Marijuana use has increased 1,000-fold since it was criminalized via the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Testifying before the U.S. Congress in 1937, the commissioner of narcotics, Harry Anslinger, testified that the U.S. had a total of 100,000 marijuana users.

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To the Editor:

The use of so-called synthetic marijuana is an unintended side-effect of the war on natural marijuana. Consumers are turning to potentially toxic drugs made in China and sold as research chemicals before being repackaged as legal incense.

Expanding the drug war will only add to the highest incarceration rate in the world. Chinese chemists will tweak formulas to stay one step ahead of the law and two steps ahead of the drug tests. New versions won't be safer. Misguided efforts to protect children from drugs are putting children at risk

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The military has lent its weight to the community effort to battle the use of synthetic drugs commonly known as "spice." Fort Lee officials last month declared two local business off limits to military personnel because the establishments sell synthetic drugs.

The two businesses that are off limits to the military are the Cigarette City at 333 Cavalier Square in Hopewell and the Shell Gas Station at 3320 Boulevard in Colonial Heights.

"It's a serious issue because much of the revenue generated by local establishments comes from those who live and work on Fort Lee," said Maj. David Martin, provost marshal. "The potential economic impact on a business that does not play by the rules is significant."

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Thank you for making the case for marijuana law reform in your April 1 editorial ["A reefer reckoning"]. The people of Colorado and Washington state are way ahead of the politicians in Washington, D.C. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a grand success. The drug war distorts supply-and-demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees.

If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to deter use, prohibition is a catastrophic failure. The U.S. has double the rate of marijuana use as the Netherlands, where marijuana is legal. The criminalization of Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis has no basis in science. The war on marijuana consumers is a failed cultural inquisition, not an evidence-based public health campaign. Not just in Colorado and Washington state, but throughout the nation, it's time to stop the pointless arrests and instead tax legal marijuana.

Robert Sharpe

Washington

Mr. Sharpe is policy analyst for Common Sense for Drug Policy.

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Major kudos to Michael Paul Williams for his outstanding column, "Waging a war against mass incarceration," and to Michelle Alexander for her outstanding book, "The New Jim Crow."

When we re-legalized alcohol in 1933 after alcohol prohibition, we didn't surrender to the alcohol cartels - we put them out of business. When we legalize, regulate, tax and control our now-unregulated, untaxed and uncontrolled drugs, our overall crime rate will decline substantially. The drug dealers, drug lords and drug cartels will be out of business overnight and our robust prison-building industry will come to a screeching halt.

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You might call it a nascent civil rights movement in response to the new Jim Crow.

About 150 people gathered Saturday morning at St. Peter Baptist Church in Glen Allen to discuss mass incarceration, the war on drugs and their effect on the black community. The Virginia Alliance Against Mass Incarceration has scheduled forums Wednesday in Richmond's East End.

"The endgame is just public awareness through the community and churches," with the hoped-for result of influencing legislation in the General Assembly, said Jesse Frierson, executive director of the alliance.

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The notion of alcohol consumers piously demanding that others stop using pot probably makes you think of the beer-swilling World War II generation berating weed-smoking hippies during the 1960s. Now, thanks to the United Nations, that caricature gets an update - and the hypocrisy is at once amusing and depressing.

You may have read the headline-grabbing news that in advance of its conference on drug policy last week, the U.N. issued a report urging the United States government to block Colorado and Washington state from moving forward with voter-approved laws that allow adult citizens to use marijuana as a less harmful alternative to alcohol. What you may not have heard is that on the very same day the U.N. released that report, U.S. ambassador Joseph Torsella slammed his U.N. colleagues for drinking too much on the job. Apparently, binging at the U.N. is so commonplace and excessive that it is hindering the organization from conducting its most basic work.

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Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Regarding your editorial, "Victory for hemp," the United States is one of the few industrialized countries that deny farmers the right to grow industrial hemp. Apparently this is because bureaucrats in Washington can't tell the difference between a tall hemp stalk and a squat marijuana bush. Prior to passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 (sic), few Americans had heard of marijuana, much less smoked it, despite widespread cultivation of industrial hemp.

The first anti-marijuana laws were a racist reaction to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s. Ironically, Americans did not begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched federal bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda. Decades later, marijuana use is increasingly mainstream. The forbidden-fruit appeal has only served to encourage marijuana use.

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Every truth goes through three stages, Schopenhauer is said to have said. First it is ridiculed, then it is violently opposed, then it is accepted as self-evident. The truth about industrial hemp seems to be somewhere between the second and third stages.

Having had some heart-to-hearts with Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he now thinks the wide-scale production of hemp for fabrics, rope and other uses is a good idea. Paul has penned a bill to remove the federal ban on the production of hemp a product Washington once encouraged through wartime "Hemp for Victory" campaigns.

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Albemarle Board May Act to Set It Apart From Pot

In the cannabis plant family, hemp is the good seed; marijuana, the evil weed.

But while the U.S. ranks as the world's leading consumer of hemp products - total U.S. sales were estimated to top $450 million in 2011, according to an industry group-it is the only major industrialized country that bans growing it, even though 11 states have passed measures removing barriers to hemp production and research. About 90 percent of the U.S. supply comes from Canada.

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RICHMOND - A bill requiring drug screening for people in Virginia's welfare-to-work program won subcommittee approval Thursday, with support from Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge County.

The measure, which failed to win approval in the General Assembly last year, could potentially affect about 15,000 people, many of them mothers who are receiving financial assistance while trying to qualify for a job.

Del. Rob Bell, sponsor of HB1789 and a candidate for attorney general, said the measure was needed because the program provides cash to recipients, not just food stamps or housing support.

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In his Commentary column, "Glimmers of hope on the drug front," Neal Peirce touches on one dimension of the war on drugs: legalization of pot and the impact on criminal activity. There can be no doubt that such changes will decrease criminal activity, but what are the unintended consequences associated with this movement?

It is remarkable how little attention is brought forward on the health consequences of such actions. Smoking pot is analogous to smoking any combustion product derived from organic material. These products of combustion are little different than smoking tobacco but have additional impact on the user with respect to impairment of complex tasks such as driving. After just completing a multigenerational war against tobacco, to set in motion an even more complex public health debacle simply considering the criminal dimension seems at a minimum to reflect a poor examination of this issue.

COLUMBIA

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In the midst of fierce winter storms, dire budget crises and a tragedy as deep and disturbing as Newtown, it's possible to discern at least one glimmer of positive news. It's a new openness to drug law reform. No, the United States isn't quite ready to abandon its concerted "war on drugs." It's "as vicious as ever," notes Tony Newman of the Drug Policy Alliance. More than 750,000 people a year are arrested for marijuana possession. More than 500,000 are behind bars for some type of drug law violation. No other nation even begins to equal these figures. The cumulative negative impact on human lives is nothing less than breathtaking.

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Richmond Police Say 4 of 2012' S Homicides Had Robberies Involving Drug

Marijuana might seem like a harmless drug to some, but local authorities in Richmond say marijuana deals and the large amounts of money involved in such transactions too often lead to violence.

Richmond police investigators believe that four of the city's 42 homicides in 2012 were motivated by robberies involving marijuana, and about a dozen other shootings - maybe more - involved the drug.

And that doesn't count the innumerable other robberies in which no one was shot, many of which never are reported because the victim doesn't want to tell the police he was selling pot or trying to buy some.

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RE 'TIME TO RETHINK the war on pot' (editorial, Dec. 11): The voters of Colorado and Washington state have made it clear that the federal government can no longer get away with confusing the drug war's collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant.

If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a success. The drug war distorts supply and demand dynamics.

If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to deter use, prohibition is a failure. The United States has a higher rate of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana laws are rarely enforced.

The criminalization of Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis has no basis in science. The war on marijuana consumers is a failed cultural inquisition, not an evidence-based public health campaign. It's time to stop the arrests and instead tax legal marijuana.

Robert Sharpe

Arlington

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Battle lines in this nation's war on drugs became slightly more complicated last month, when voters in Colorado and Washington became the first in the country to legalize use of marijuana. That newfound freedom isn't permitted under federal law, and it is unclear how the federal and state governments will reconcile their differences.

Legalization of marijuana may not be the most prudent solution for regulating America's most popular illicit drug. Other states, including Maryland, have passed laws that permit medicinal use. Virginia has not.

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NORFOLK - Over a 34-year police career, Neill Franklin was a big-time drug warrior.

As an undercover narcotics agent with the Maryland State Police, he made hundreds of drug arrests. Later, as a supervisor and commander, he was indirectly responsible for thousands more.

He was proud of his work. He thought he was contributing to the betterment of society.

Today, he tells anyone who will listen that he was wrong.

Franklin is now executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition an organization of current and former law enforcement officers that lobbies for the legalization and regulation of drugs. He will lead an audience discussion Wednesday night after the screening of the documentary film "The House I Live In" at the Naro Expanded Cinema.

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DENVER - What's next? Amid all the munchie-themed jokes from reporters, political elites and late-night comedians, this remains the overarching question after Coloradans voted overwhelmingly to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana in the same way alcohol is already legalized, regulated and taxed. Since those anti-DrugWar principles are now enshrined in Colorado's constitution, only the feds can stop this Rocky Mountain state - if they so choose. But will they? And should they even be able to?

The answer to the former is maybe. Barack Obama campaigned for president pledging to respect state marijuana laws but his Justice Department has been authorizing federal crackdowns. Now, with the results of the 2012 election, Colorado's Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper has been forced into the awkward position of fighting off the feds in defense of a state constitutional amendment he tried to defeat.

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Seeking to scare the public away from legalizing the stuff, the Obama administration notes that in 2009, marijuana was "involved in" 376,000 emergency-room visits nationwide. Be afraid, be very afraid: This represents less than 0.3 of 1 percent of all ER visits, and 3.3 million fewer visits than are caused annually by recreational sports. Figures such as those help explain why voters in Washington and Colorado were not frightened, and passed referenda decriminalizing pot.

Oregon rejected a similar measure, just as California did two years ago. But the tide may be turning. On Tuesday, five Michigan cities (Detroit, Flint, Ypsilanti, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo) and Burlington, Vt., also passed measures relaxing pot laws. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have approved marijuana for medical use.

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