Half of the leave time donated to keep a suspended House of Representative custodial worker on the state payroll while police investigated his role in a shootout was donated by the same person who decided earlier not to tell legislators that more than two pounds of marijuana had been found in the State House in the same employee's bag.

According to House records, Clerk of the House Greg Pappas donated 80 of the 160 hours that former House custodial worker Lorenza Hooks received while he was suspended for his alleged involvement in a May 2008 shooting. Hooks is currently in the Montgomery County Detention Facility on an unrelated charge of trafficking crack cocaine. His bond is set at $1.5 million.

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Recently, there's been a lot of discussion about legalizing marijuana and the amount of tax revenue it would generate. In California, it's estimated that legal marijuana would bring $1.4 billion annually. I crunched the numbers to see how much Alabama might rake in if we also legalized marijuana.

The current number of marijuana users in Alabama is estimated to be 392,032, or 11.25 percent of the voting-age population (as of 2006.) Divide that by the current number of marijuana consumers in California, which is estimated at 4,183,136. These numbers are according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and Census data.

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The drugs were found in a fifth-floor office in the Alabama State House.

Former state Rep. Bobby Humphryes, R-Pleasant Grove, was leaving the Legislature to become a Jefferson County commissioner and had stopped by to clear out a few more things from his office when he found a black backpack with a scale, a box of plastic bags and a two-pound block of marijuana.

He immediately called House security. After reviewing security camera footage, law enforcement officials saw Lorenza Hooks, a maintenance worker, carrying the backpack into the office just a few hours before Humphryes found it.

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Jefferson County sheriff's deputies warn of increased safety risks if budget cuts made

Jeffco captain says staff 'bare bones' Sunday, July 12, 2009 VAL WALTON News staff writer

Two Jefferson County senior sheriff's deputies testified Saturday that staffing in their divisions is already thin and public safety would be jeopardized if cuts are made in the sheriff's office narcotics division.

The County Commission voted last month to trim Sheriff Mike Hale's budget by one-third as part of across-the-board cuts for all departments of the nearly insolvent county government.

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Mr. Winkler's letter "Legalize pot? Still a bad idea" shows a lack of understanding on how basic economics and the free market works. Allowing the government to act as a supplier is his first mistake. Advertisement

Government cannot supply anything as well as a private company can, and if it does, it's at a much higher cost and lower quality. By his own admission, the feds can't grow marijuana that anyone is interested in purchasing because it's so bad.

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I read with great interest the recent article "The marijuana debate." I found it curious that all of the professional experts who spoke out against legalizing and regulating marijuana earn their living off of the war on drugs. Since half of those arrested in Alabama on drug charges are arrested for marijuana offenses, if it were legalized, we might need the drug warriors only half as much.

These "experts" told a slew of lies and half-truths they cannot back up. I was particularly offended by Jason Murray's comments about Europe. He said: "Amsterdam has more addicts living on the street than any other city in Europe or the world. It is a massive draw on their society over there."

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The Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency agree that smoked marijuana has no medicinal value, yet they have approved a pharmaceutical pill, Marinol, derived from the active ingredient in marijuana.

According to the DEA's Web site, it even helped facilitate the research for Marinol. Since the DEA's mission is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations, why would it be facilitating research on a drug it considers illegal with no medicinal value?

The DEA said there are no FDA-approved medications that are smoked. Smoking is a poor delivery system for medicine. However, smoking marijuana is not the only delivery system that can be used. It can be made into tea, cooked in a variety of foods and now there is a vaporizer that takes most of the harmful carcinogens out.

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Gil Kerlikowske, President Barack Obama's drug czar, recently told the Wall Street Journal that the term "war on drugs" was outdated and he wanted it terminated.

He said the fight against illegal drugs, started by President Richard Nixon some 40 years ago, had failed. There are more people imprisoned for drug offenses than any other crime, but prison has not stopped the flow and use of illicit drugs. In fact, some people believe the problem has gotten worse over the last few decades.

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Give some credit to Alabama gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Rep. Artur Davis. On his campaign Web site, he recently asked residents to post ideas about how to improve the state and then comment and vote on those they thought were most important.

However, Davis should have remembered why kindergarten teachers know never to ask a bunch of 5-year-olds if they have any questions. As sure as you do, one will ask, "why is the sky blue?" Another will ask "why do dogs chase cats?" And a third will ask, "can I go to the bathroom?" Open the floor and folks will ask anything.

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A letter to the Montgomery Advertiser said that Loretta Nall threatened all politicians with financial downfall if they didn't support her platform of legalizing marijuana. She didn't threaten any politicians; she merely suggested legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana as a potential financial alternative, just like several statesmen have suggested.

The letter said that marijuana was the No. 1 drug of choice requiring treatment at the Montgomery Addiction Program. Marijuana is the most-used illegal drug, so it only stands to reason that marijuana would be the No. 1 drug requiring treatment in a court-mandated program like the Montgomery's Addiction Program.

As for the statement about us being better off wondering if the bus driver, pilot, etc., was puffing on a legal substance, how do we know if he or she isn't under the influence of a legal prescription drug?

Dawn Palmer

Tarrant

[end]

MONTGOMERY - Legalizing marijuana turned out to be the top single vote-getter when U.S Rep. Artur Davis used his gubernatorial campaign Web site to solicit ideas for moving Alabama forward.

It didn't rate that high with the candidate, however, and he didn't even mention it when thanking contributors after the Web vote was taken down Friday.

The marijuana idea was posted by Loretta Nall of Alexander City, an independent candidate for governor in 2006 and a longtime advocate of decriminalizing marijuana. She was incensed that he didn't acknowledge the idea even though it came in first.

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Recently the Artur Davis for Governor campaign solicited ideas from the public on their Web site to about how to move Alabama forward. I submitted ending marijuana prohibition as a way to ease prison overcrowding, as a new source of revenue for our cash-starved state, and as a means of creating new jobs to offset the highest unemployment rates Alabama has seen in 25 years.

Out of 80 ideas, legalizing marijuana was voted to the No. 1 slot with 118 votes. Eighty-eight percent of those votes were in favor of legalization.

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Although some states are openly debating the legalization of marijuana, Alabama does not appear ready to take that step just yet. Still, there are some advocates for legalization, such as former gubernatorial candidate Loretta Nall. Brian Schoenhals In a sluggish economy, as states are struggling to keep the books balanced, several have been asked to discuss the legalization and regulation of marijuana, both as a cost saver and as a source of tax revenue. Under current law, a first time arrest for possession of marijuana for personal use is a misdemeanor. A second or subsequent conviction is a class C felony, punishable by one year and one day to 10 years in prison. State law does not differentiate between distribution of marijuana and distribution of other controlled substances.

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In response to Rep. Alvin Holmes' claim that a drug dealer set up shop in the Statehouse and now has a claim on his life, I have four things to say.

# Who were the drugs being dealt to?

# In order to find out the answer to that, I say we drug-test all elected officials and state employees and find out. If I have to be drug-tested to work at Wal-Mart, and kids have to be drug tested to play in the band, then those elected to run government, control the checkbook of the entire state and be in a position of power, which they use to put other people in prison for using drugs, certainly should be drug-tested.

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The Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act, legislation that would allow the legalization of medicinal marijuana to people with debilitating medical conditions, will be carried over to next Wednesday's Judiciary Committee in the Alabama Legislature due to Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Jefferson, the primary sponsor of the bill, being sick Wednesday morning and unable to present the legislation before the committee.

Wednesday was the initial day to present the bill to the committee. Todd was unavailable for comment at press time.

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I am writing in support of HB434 in the Alabama Legislature, the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act. In February 2007, my husband of 19 years, Craig, was diagnosed with advanced liver and lymph node cancer. With chemotherapy, doctors gave him six months to live. Our only child was a few months from graduating high school and he wanted so much to live to see that day that he opted for the chemotherapy knowing it would decrease the quality of his life.

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Dear Editor: Bravo to letter writer Don Seibold for speaking out as a supporter of HB434. We can only hope our elected officials will demonstrate the same courage and vote 'Yes' when this bill comes before them.

In years past when this bill has come before the Judiciary Committee one of the arguments against it has been that if we protect Alabama patients and physicians by passing this law the feds will swoop down on Alabama. However, on Feb. 25 during a press conference, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department will no longer conduct medical marijuana raids in states that have passed medical marijuana laws. So, that is one less excuse the judiciary committee will have this year.

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There's a song that I've come across that some might think should be played in jail cells. It is from the Blind Boys of Alabama, and the song is "No Dope." The chorus goes, "We don't need no dope, 'cause we got hope."

That song came to my memory last week when we had the incident on I-65 when suspects were caught throwing marijuana out the window. So much so that I had to play the song for our news staff again.

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Our government has been funding research on marijuana for years and all the reports we have heard about are the harmful effects. Why doesn't it ever do research to see if there might be positive effects? Obviously, there must be a call for this type research since 13 states have legalized it for medicinal purposes.

Dr. Donald Tashkin used to be one of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's top researchers on marijuana. In his studies, he discovered that THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) has been shown to promote known apoptosis (damaged cells die instead of reproducing) and to counter angiogenesis (the process by which blood vessels are formed - - a requirement of tumor growth). He said that other antioxidants in cannabis may also be involved in countering malignancy.

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Re "Medical marijuana" and "Bill needs Star's support" (Speak Out, March 13 and 17):

Bravo to letter writers Don Seibold and Gil Joiner for speaking out as supporters of HB434 in Alabama. We can only hope our elected officials will demonstrate the same courage and vote "yes" when this bill comes before them.

In years past, one of the arguments against this bill has been that if we protect Alabama patients and physicians by passing this law, the feds will swoop down on Alabama. However, in a Feb. 25 press conference, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department will no longer conduct medical marijuana raids in states that have passed medical marijuana laws. So, that is one less excuse the judiciary committee will have this year.

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