Dear Editor: One fact Tyler Zellmer omitted in advocating for medical marijuana use is that it is impossible to take a Marinol pill or to eat a marijuana brownie when you are puking your guts out from chemotherapy. Trust me, the pills come shooting out like mung beans out of a pea shooter. The nausea relief provided by a few puffs of marijuana is the only reason many people are able to endure their cancer treatments. Anyone who stands in the way of medical marijuana has spiraled into a moral black hole where lies trump the plain truth. Ralph Givens, Daly City, Calif. [end]
Re: "Blowing Smoke," Feb. 28-Mar. 5 Health Canada reveals its utter hypocrisy by advising a dosage limit for cannabis after claiming it knows very little about marijuana. If they don't know anything, how can they make any medically based recommendations? How do they dare speak about medical marijuana at all? Better they leave such matters to those with real knowledge. Ralph Givens, Daly City, CA [end]
Mike Carey is correct on one point: An international treaty does supersede constitutional rights ("The U.S. Does Have Authority to Prohibit Drug Usage, and the People Can't Change That," Mailbag, Nov. 1). However, the idea that a treaty is carved in stone and cannot be amended is an error. The United States can abandon the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs treaty anytime it chooses to do so. Moreover, there will be no repercussions among other signatories, because the United States has been the main promoter of international drug prohibition. Most of the countries in Europe would end the drug war in an instant if it were not for pressure from the United States. [continues 52 words]
Juliette Guilbert's insightful article ["Scared Straight? Or Just Scared?" Summer 2007] can be summed up in a few words: America's drug crusade is highly counterproductive and "drug education" in the schools actually encourages drug use. The effects of drug prohibition should not be a mystery to anyone with the slightest knowledge of the history of Prohibition. The "Noble Experiment" was promoted with the idea of "saving kids from booze," but if anybody bothers to check the history they will find that, during Prohibition, the United States experiencesd the worst epidemic of teen alcoholism before or since. Thousands of young people suffered permanent brain damage, blindness, liver damage, paralysis and death. [continues 64 words]
To the Editor: Re: Pot farms thrive despite best CAMP efforts (editorial, Aug. 15) Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) enforces marijuana laws based on absurd lies: "Marijuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice." (Hearst newspapers nationwide, 1934) "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana can cause white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others." [continues 203 words]
[Re: "Lies, Damned Lies, and Marijuana," July 19] It's good to see exposure of the hypocrisy called marijuana prohibition. Any list of laws that serve no useful purpose must put marijuana prohibition at the top. America's politicians have wedded themselves to Reefer Madness fables, fictions, and false witness for so long that the only hope for change is to vote these sleazeballs out of office. What is a representative worth if he/she is too stupid or too hidebound to see the truth about marijuana. Anyone who supports punishment for a "marijuana crime" does not deserve to hold public office. Citizens serving on juries must deliver simple justice by refusing to convict in "marijuana only" cases. A very good reason for refusing to issue any guilty verdicts is the fact that the money wasted on enforcement, courts, and prisons by itself could save Social Security. Ralph Givens Daly City, California [end]
To the editor: Re: Petition to ban 'magic mint' in July 11 North Star. Before Parry Sound's drug crusaders wheel out the usual hysterical lies in their attempts to outlaw salvia divinorum, it is worthwhile to notice that no serious problems have been associated with salvia divinorum to date. There are no deaths, no desperate addictions and no robberies, assaults or murders connected to salvia divinorum. Of course, prohibitionists who advocate a salvia ban need no evidence of risk or harm to spew out dire warnings. If it is a drug and some people like it, it must be dangerous. Nevermind that alcohol and tobacco kill hundreds of thousands every year while salvia has yet to record a single fatality. The drug warriors still want a total ban. The moral morons advocating prohibition never stop to consider that throwing someone in prison has a far more detrimental effect than a lifetime of salvia divinorum use. Daly City, California [end]
Re: "Caught in the middle" (Newslines, by Robert Speer, CN&R, June 21): The very idea that people are being imprisoned for using marijuana makes me ashamed to be an American. When I hear that Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel Wong is using fraudulent evidence to convict a medical marijuana user, my disgust becomes complete. Refusing to recognize the right of California voters to legalize medical marijuana makes President Bush guilty of lying, because before he was elected he said, "I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose." [continues 101 words]
Before the drug crusaders wheel out the usual hysterical lies in their attempts to outlaw salvia divinorum, it is worthwhile to notice that no serious problems have been associated with salvia divinorum to date. There are no deaths, no desperate addictions and no robberies, assaults or murders connected to salvia. Of course, prohibitionists who advocate a salvia ban need no evidence of risk or harm to spew out dire warnings. If it is a drug and some people like it, it must be dangerous. [continues 66 words]
Re: Record meth haul by police (May 18) Learning that "the largest single seizure of crystal meth in department history" only amounts to "one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine" raises questions about the meth scare being promoted by Victoria police officers. How can a trickle of meth so small possibly supply the epidemic of meth addiction they claim exists or is the "epidemic" just more drug crusader propaganda? If the largest seizure in history is only one kilogram of crystal meth the drug warriors are either absurdly ineffective in stopping drugs or they are greatly exaggerating the extent of the problem to enhance their budgets and power. Daly City, CA [end]
Re: Record meth haul by police (May 18) Learning that "the largest single seizure of crystal meth in department history" only amounts to "one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine" raises questions about the meth scare being promoted by Victoria police officers. How can a trickle of meth so small possibly supply the epidemic of meth addiction they claim exists or is the "epidemic" just more drug crusader propaganda? If the largest seizure in history is only one kilogram of crystal meth the drug warriors are either absurdly ineffective in stopping drugs or they are greatly exaggerating the extent of the problem to enhancetheir budgets and power. Daly City, CA [end]
The author of the letter, "Drugs ruined what was once a nice little neighborhood," (AC--T, May 20), should delve deeper into the history of drug prohibition before blaming "drugs" for the effects of drug prohibition. People are committing violent crimes in West Asheville because of a long failed prohibition policy that brings violence, disease and death where none existed previously, not because they are high on drugs. The same thing happened during Alcohol Prohibition, but people didn't blame bootlegger crimes on drunkenness. They knew that the prohibition laws were behind the reign of terror from criminals like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. [continues 124 words]
Editor: Before taking reporter Cassidy Olivier's article about salvia divinorum as a reason to start another front in a long-failed drug crusade, it is worthwhile to notice that no serious problems have been associated with salvia divinorum. There are no deaths, no desperate addictions and no robberies, assaults or murders connected to salvia divinorum. Those seeking to outlaw salvia divinorum can only point to the fact that it "gets people high for five minutes. As though getting high is automatically a criminal matter. Moving salvia divinorum into a prohibited class can only cause problems where no problems exist. Ralph Givens Daly City, Calif. [end]
Regarding your Oct. 6 article: "Vero man sentenced to 30 years in prison for marijuana charges": Sending David L. Bennett to prison for 30 years for a "marijuana crime" shows the utter immorality of drug prohibition. Such a cruel sentence clearly violates the biblical standard of justice: Exodus 21:23 "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise" (also see Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21). [continues 232 words]
Senior Pastor Dr. Ted Beam should study his Bible more diligently because his denunciation of drug plants made by the Creator insults God. Denying the usefulness of plants such as marijuana, coca, peyote cactus and psilocybe mushrooms shows extreme ignorance and a lack of faith in God. The only prohibition of any plant found in the Bible is at Genesis 2:16: The Lord God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; (17) but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." [continues 440 words]
Regarding "Stopping drug violence" (Opinion, Aug. 4): Former San Diego Executive Assistant Chief of Police Norm Stamper's exposure of the counterproductive nature of drug prohibition reminds one that Eliot Ness never put the bootleggers out of business; repeal and a regulated market for alcohol did that. A drug crusade based on the same principles doesn't work any better than alcohol prohibition did. It's time to admit that drug prohibition is a failure and establish a regulated market for adult drug use. Ralph Givens San Diego [end]
Letter writer William F. Brna conveniently overlooks the fact that thousands of people become infected with HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, etc., every year because of sharing needles with infected people ("Say 'No" to needles," March 30). Many of those who become infected do not use drugs and catch the disease from an addicted partner. Withholding clean needles from addicts is a crime against humanity, no matter what Pennsylvania's paraphernalia laws say. Ralph Givens San Diego [end]
As a person who suffered months of chronic pain more severe than a bone break, I condemn Florida's misguided drug crusaders for interfering in matters they are hopelessly unqualified to deal with. A lot of the "addicts" treated by Dr. Asuncion Luyao are actually people with extreme chronic pain. America's drug war is a misguided fraud that meddles with medical care and denies people in agony access to effective pain killers. Sending Dr. Luyao to prison is a crime against humanity. Here's hoping that the lawmen and prosecutors who engineered Luyao's conviction will experience a long bout of untreated chronic pain. Ralph Givens San Diego, Calif. [end]
