MARYSVILLE - A trio of personal testimonies as to the benefits of medical marijuana was met with interest by the Marysville City Council on Dec. 12, as two citizens of Marysville and one from Lake Stevens urged them to allow the city's moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries to expire on Jan. 5 of next year.

Nonetheless, the Council voted unanimously to extend the moratorium into June of 2012, after Marysville City Attorney Grant Weed warned of potential confusion in interpreting the existing laws regulating medical marijuana, as well as conflicts that could arise between municipal, state and federal laws on the subject.

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MARYSVILLE -- Those looking to acquire medicinal marijuana in Marysville have a long wait ahead of them.

The Marysville City Council voted unanimously on July 11 to impose a six-month interim moratorium on any applications or activities by medicinal marijuana dispensaries or collective gardens within the city limits, after a public hearing at that same Council meeting which drew testimony from the owner of a collective garden in the Puget Sound region.

Marysville City Attorney Grant Weed explained that a bill adopted by the state Legislature, but partially vetoed by the governor, "leaves it uncertain" to what extent counties and cities can authorize the establishment of medicinal marijuana dispensaries or collective gardens. As such, the moratorium is intended to afford city staff and officials further time to study the regulations and determine what course of action would be appropriate with regard to issues such as zoning and licensing.

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MARYSVILLE -- With a number of statewide ballot measures seeking to put the issue of marijuana legalization up to a vote in Washington, the city of Marysville is weighing whether it should take action of its own.

On June 22, the "New Approach Washington" group filed for an initiative to legalize the growth, processing and sale of marijuana, in regulated stores to adults 21 years or older, which would allow the state Legislature to enact it themselves or put it on next year's ballot.

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Bravo to Jim Hightower for his outstanding op/ed, "Drug War finds its Atilla" (6-06-0l). However, I disagree with his description of John Walters as a "right wing ideologue." Right wing implies conservative. As a "true" conservative, I am insulted by the hypocrisy of someone who supports the policy of prohibition being considered a conservative.

Prohibition is the policy of the government dictating to adult citizens what substances they may or may not put into their own bodies. True conservatives do not support the policy of prohibition. True conservatives believe in the principals of freedom and liberty as declared in the Declaration of Independence. True conservatives do not believe the government should attempt to protect adult citizens from themselves.

Prohibition is certainly not a policy that our founding fathers would support or tolerate.

True conservatives believe the people should be protected from the government: not the other way around.

Kirk Muse, Vancouver, Wash.

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I find it more than slightly amusing that so many pundits are shocked at a U.S. administration cozying with terrorists and/or drug-dealers. We only have to look back to the Ollie North days and more recently to the Kosovo fiasco.

In 1998, the CIA called the Albanian terrorist organization, the KLA, the best armed group in the world (thank you USA). It also happened that 90 percent of Europe's heroin passes through their hands as well.

Of course, you didn't show any disgust when Gen. Wesley Clark and Madeleine Albright were having croissant's and cafe au lait during the infamous Rainbouillet 'nego-tiations' (read ultimatum) with drug dealer-terrorists who were wanted by Interpol, who we trained, cajoled and started a war of independence for.

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In his excellent May 30th column Robert Scheer rightfully criticizes the Bush administration for giving $43 million to Afghanistan's brutal Taliban regime in exchange for what is sure to be a short-lived commitment to eradicating the poverty-stricken country's opium crop.

Apparently the self-professed champions of the free market in Congress are incapable of applying basic economic principles to drug policy. When the supply of illicit drugs is successfully limited in one region while demand remains constant, illicit crop cultivation becomes more profitable else-where.

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What if First Daughters Jenna and Barbara Bush had been caught lighting up a joint? Would the respectable media play down that story the way they have the Bush children's illegal purchases of alcohol?

Hardly, because marijuana is an officially pro-scribed demon drug, while alcohol is a mainstay of the culture, promoted incessantly as an essential ingredient of the good life.

Marijuana use, the drug-war zealots insist, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, leads inevitably to the harder stuff. That's why the U.S. Supreme Court won't risk the health of dying can-cer patients with a few tokes of physician prescribed pot. Rut those margaritas that the Bush girls grew up to prefer, heck that's just child's play, something all college students do and soon grow out of.

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George W - the guy who claims to be President Compassionate, the guy who concedes of himself that he 'may or may not have committed' drug crimes of 'youthful indiscretion' well into his thirties - now is pushing a drug policy of squinty-eyed intolerance, inflexibility, meanness... and proven stupidity.

To put the hammer to the policy, President Nasty has chosen John P. Walters to be his Drug Czar. Walters is a hard-line, shoot-'em-down, throw-'em-in-jail- and-throw-away-the-key drug hawk who doesn't want to hear any wimpy talk about people's constitutional rights or the need for drug treatment programs. Indeed, in senate testimony, Walters snarled that drug rehab is the latest manifestation of the liberal's commitment to a "thera-peutic state."

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Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists and destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.

That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the United States the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.

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MARYSVILLE -- Police narcotics detectives want to hear the phone ring.

And with the unveiling of the Marysville Police Department's new narcotics tipline last week, they hope callers will have plen-ty to talk about.

"We are enlisting the eyes and ears of citizens to help remove illegal drugs from our streets and our community," Sergeant Jeff Goldman says. "We view this hotline as a help-ful tool for gathering informa-tion that could help stop a nar-cotics-related crime or solve a case."

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I believe being your elected Sheriff requires due diligence on my part whenever our Legislature meets and goes through the process of creating new laws or changing existing laws. We all have to live by the laws our Legislature writes and your deputies and police officers have to operate by these laws. Many sheriffs and police executives testify every legislative session. We offer our opinions regarding the impact (positive or negative) of a variety of proposed new laws. I have been going to Olympia almost weekly to testify.

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