Thank you for Howard Weissman's commentary "Legalizing marijuana means children will be targeted" (Nov. 8). Points that he made are strongly supported by a new book written by addiction medicine specialists Dr. Scott Teitelbaum and Michael Nias, "Weed: Family Guide to Marijuana Myths and Facts."

The authors emphasize that due to crop engineering, marijuana is a much stronger drug than it was in decades past. The chemical that makes users feel high, THC, is 5 to 7 times higher than it was in the 1970s.

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Citing the recent Gallup poll which announced that 58 percent of people support marijuana legalization, the Post-Dispatch editorial board suggested now is the time for Missouri to jump on the pro-legalization bandwagon. Between the potential new jobs and sources of revenue, legalizing marijuana seemed like a viable solution to some of Missouri's problems.

While a majority of Americans appear to favor legalizing the use of marijuana, far fewer people are enthused about legalizing its sale. Indifferent acceptance of adults using marijuana is a long way from endorsing the creation of a new Big Tobacco-like industry producing, promoting and selling marijuana to our kids - an inevitable consequence of legalization.

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Kenneth McManus asks how decriminalizing marijuana will help us better educate our children (Letters, Nov. 2). It won't and no one is claiming it will; that's not the issue.

The issue is that we have made things immeasurably worse by jailing otherwise productive, law-abiding citizens, overcrowding our jails and wasting billions of dollars on law enforcement that could be put to much better use. In addition, the sale and taxation of marijuana will raise hundreds of millions of dollars. This money could go a long way to addressing some of the other needs of our society. Hey, I'll bet we could allocate some of that money to education!

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Renee Heney uses predictable scare tactics to defend her opposition to marijuana legalization ("Legalizing marijuana jeopardizes the health of our children," Oct. 31). We can all agree that teens should not smoke pot, or be using any mind-altering substances, as those are important developmental years. Yet, data continue to show that general education and regulation, not outright criminalization of legal, age-restricted substances, effectively decrease youth access and use.

In fact, teen consumption of tobacco and alcohol, two legal, age-restricted products, have reached historically low levels, according to the Monitoring the Future Survey, conducted by the University of Michigan. This was achieved through a concerted effort by the government, industry businesses and educational institutions to restrict advertising, promote responsible behavior and keep students informed on the effects and potential harms these products may have on their growing bodies. What's more, recent studies have shown that in states with an established regulatory regime for certain individuals to gain legal access to marijuana, adolescent use rates have either stayed the same, or even gone down.

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When the history of the legalization of marijuana is written, October 2013 will go down as a key month.

Three moments this month, seemingly unrelated, might have hastened the day when Colorado and Washington will be the norm, not the outliers, in a country reliving the end of Prohibition for the second time.

This month, on his farm in southeastern Colorado's Baca County, Ryan Loflin harvested a 55-acre hemp crop, believed to be the first legal hemp crop harvested in the U.S. in more than five decades. When Colorado voters legalized marijuana, it opened the door on cultivating hemp crops, which were an agricultural staple in many states - including Missouri - in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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In response to the editorial on legalizing marijuana ("The end of Prohibition, Part II," Oct. 29), I have this to say: If the majority of citizens - Missouri and otherwise - are in favor of marijuana legalization, they are misinformed. Equipped with knowledge, most people would not support an issue that jeopardizes the health and well-being of our country's youth.

There are risks associated with marijuana use among adolescents and young adults - whose brains are still developing - and to gloss over these realities, and make it appear as though "everyone" believes marijuana is harmless and should be legalized, is inexcusable.

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Seeing billboards advertising marijuana would make a lot of people do double takes because pot has been reviled as a devil weed for generations.

But as that old Bob Dylan song goes, "Times they are a changing." Pro-marijuana billboards are on city buses in Portland, Maine, ahead of Tuesday's ballot proposal, which if approved would make the city the first in the East to legalize pot for recreational use.

Cigarette ads used to populate street and roadside billboards and those on buses. But because of the health hazards of cigarette smoking, those have been banned in most cities, including Portland. But the Greater Portland Transit District did accept $2,500 for the marijuana billboards on four buses and in two bus shelters, the McClatchy Washington Bureau reports.

If the ballot proposal passes, the city would join Colorado and Washington in legalizing - and taxing - marijuana for recreational use.

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Regarding Judge Julian Bush's commentary, "Make first-time drug possession a misdemeanor," the drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. In 2011, there were 757,969 marijuana arrests in the United States, almost 90 percent for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The end result of this ongoing culture war is not lower rates of use.

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Two hundred and fifty years ago, Cesare Beccaria, an early criminologist, emphasized that punishment that is swift and sure does far more to discourage crime than punishment that is severe.

In the intervening years, criminologists have repeated that lesson to us. Regrettably, the criminal justice system in the city of St. Louis is failing abysmally in the task of punishing criminals swiftly.

During the most recent year for which statistics are available - the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012 - the average number of days for disposition of felony cases (felonies are more serious crimes; misdemeanors are less serious crimes) in the city of St. Louis is 248 days from the filing of an indictment or information charging the commission of a crime.

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Terry Duncan dropped out of high school when his dad died. He wanted to earn some money and help the family. He got a job laying sod. That job didn't last forever, but it set the tone for his career.

He's had a series of jobs, most of which involved physical labor. He's done a little sales work, and he once ran a tavern, but mostly he's worked with his hands and his back.

Ten years ago, when he was 45, he got a job in maintenance with the Edward Jones Family YMCA in Maryland Heights. He started part time in 2003 and went full time in 2004. Funny how things work out. He had been reared in Maryland Heights, and when he found the job, he was living in Maryland Heights. That's where his wife's house was. They'd both been married before.

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There are predictions that, sooner or later, marijuana use will be legal in most states in this country. We've all read that the recreational use of marijuana is now legal in Colorado and Washington state. It also is legal for medical purposes in about a dozen states.

Medical research shows a clear link between marijuana use and mental illness, especially schizophrenia. Samuel T. Wilkinson, resident physician in the Department of Psychiatry at The Yale School of Medicine, wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal about the connection between pot-smoking and schizophrenia. Every high school should make the reading of this column mandatory for students.

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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Springfield's City Council has voted again not to lower the penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The council Monday night defeated a proposal to limit penalties for possession of the drug and declined to place an alternative proposal on the August ballot. Supporters of the proposals said they would meet later to decide what their next step might be, The Springfield News-Leader reported.

The proposal would have required the city to charge some first- and second-time offenders who had 35 grams or less of marijuana with municipal infractions, rather than criminal misdemeanors. Exemptions also would have allowed suspects to be prosecuted in state court for multiple offenses or when other crimes are committed, or at the discretion of the county prosecutor.

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Officers Have Higher Priorities.

What are police officers for, and why do we have them? How are their time and your tax dollars best used? Most people don't often consider these questions, but as Missouri legislators consider changing the laws regarding personal use and possession of marijuana, they are worth pondering.

I spent 36 years on the streets of Denver as a police officer, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you think police should be using most of their time providing quick response to your calls for service and working to prevent and solve crimes like assault, murder, rape, robbery. I'd bet you would think the old saying "When seconds count, police are only minutes away" should be limited to as few minutes as possible and that police should be just around the corner when someone threatens your property, your well-being or your life.

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A pathetic public disservice, "A case against legalizing marijuana" (April 9) recycles 1970s drug-war disinformation. "Not so fast"? 52 percent now favor legal pot. California legalized medicinal use in 1996, and 13 more states and Washington, D.C., have since followed. Colorado and Washington legalized recreational weed in 2012, with 12 more states expected by 2017, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse has lost the war on pot. It should focus on alcoholism and real drug abuse (meth, heroin), and stop promoting pot stigmatization, punitive mandates and unjust incarceration. Unlike cigarettes and alcohol, marijuana is not physically addictive and never killed anyone; overdose is impossible. Suppressed science consistently confirms long-established benefits of medical weed and minimal potential for harm.

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Participants will include members of law enforcement, legislators, progressive, and conservatives

ST. LOUIS -- On Saturday, April 13, Show-Me Cannabis will host a statewide conference on cannabis law reform at the Crowne Plaza Downtown at 200 N. Fourth Street in Saint Louis. The conference will be held from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. will attract participants from across Missouri and nearby states. The event is co-sponsored by Missouri NORML and Greater Saint Louis NORML.

The conference will feature panel discussions with individuals who approach cannabis policy from a variety of different perspectives, but all agree that the laws prohibiting marijuana have failed and require immediate reforms. In addition to cannabis law reform activists, speakers will include members of law enforcement, notable progressives and conservatives, and local and state legislators.

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ST. LOUIS A city police sergeant who moonlights as a lobbyist for Show-Me Cannabis has filed suit against the department for allegedly stifling his pro-pot politicking.

News that Sgt. Gary Wiegert was registered as a lobbyist for the organization that advocates legalizing marijuana raised eyebrows last week and prompted Police Chief Sam Dotson to denounce Wiegert's views as his alone and "not what is expected of our officers."

But it didn't end there, alleges Wiegert's attorney, Albert Watkins.

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ST. LOUIS - Police Chief Sam Dotson said Friday that political lobbying by a veteran sergeant for a pro-marijuana group is "not what is expected of our officers."

As first reported by Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan in a column Friday, Sgt. Gary Wiegert is a lobbyist for Show-Me Cannabis, which wants Missouri to allow the regulated sale of marijuana. The group says it wants regulation "in a manner similar to alcohol."

Wiegert also lobbies for the St. Louis Tea Party.

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Several of my young colleagues were talking wistfully about establishing a commune.

"I'm in," I said, although I had not been invited.

There was an awkward silence. Perhaps the commune they had in mind was not going to have a shuffleboard court.

"What skills would you bring?" one asked me.

That might have been meant as a trick question. I'm always asking for help with the computer. I can't master the new phone system. I bump into things. I would not be a lot of help if the commune wanted to build a barn. So I considered the question. What skills would I bring?

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JEFFERSON CITY A bill filed in the House would reduce penalties for marijuana possession in Missouri, effectively setting the same penalties statewide as those already in place in Columbia.

Barring certain exceptions, people who are caught with less than 35 grams of marijuana would be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a fine of no more than $250. Thirty-five grams is about 1.25 ounces.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Rory Ellinger, D-University City, and seven other Democrats also would allow individuals to expungethe offense from their record if he or she performs community service and pays the fine.

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The war on marijuana is going up in smoke, and it's about time. There is no bigger waste of money and resources in all law enforcement.

Failure is too polite a description for the long campaign to eliminate the pot trade in the United States. A colossal flop is what it is. After four decades and billions spent, marijuana is easier to get, and more potent, than ever.

More than 40 percent of all Americans over 12 have tried it, and at least 30 million people smoke it every year. The most recent national drug survey found that 18.1 million Americans had used it during the previous month.

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