Crocodile tears, racially-tinged sophistry and misplaced umbrage in The Chronicle letters on the Zimmerman verdict obligate me to disabuse some of their most unabashed misrepresentations. Despite some writers' presumptions, many of all the people protesting George Zimmerman's unjust exoneration also vehemently objected to O.J. Simpson's outrageous acquittal. That they're somehow selective racists is specious pandering. And only selectively blind and cold-hearted people could have missed the many times this white man has read of and seen the African American community and the likes of Al Sharpton get worked up about black-on-black crime. Thinking otherwise, by definition, is racism. I have joined many blacks and whites who have vociferously decried all concomitant violence precipitated by the failed war on drugs which has become a de facto tool of minority oppression upon black youths who all face employment and civil rights discrimination. Ed Chainey, Richmond [end]
This decades-long experiment in social and cultural self-destruction via police-state neo-prohibition, aka "the war on drugs" must end, especially regarding marijuana. We can try state initiatives like Proposition 19, but better yet, let's pass legislation properly reclassifying marijuana from schedule one to schedule five, or just declassify it completely. It's really that simple to do, but politically difficult for our weak-willed mainstream politicians. In Schedule I, the drug or other substance must have a high potential for abuse, which marijuana doesn't compared to legal alcohol, meeting the Schedule V definition of low potential for abuse relative to the substances in schedules I-IV. [continues 103 words]
