On the streets of (you name the city), I get information of drugs in a home. Some friends and I get our guns, kick in the door and enter the home yelling and screaming orders. We are meet by a 92-year-old woman with a gun; the woman is killed. We get mandatory sentences of 25 years to life in prison. Now change the scenario, give us police badges and assign us to the narcotics division. Nothing else changes. No charges are ever be filed, no one held accountable ("92-year-old Atlanta woman killed in shootout with officers," Nov. 23). These and other violations of our constitutional rights must stop. When the commander in chief accepts torture to obtain information for the greater good, where are we heading? Jack E. Miller Wasilla [end]
Who would have thought that the liberals on the Supreme Court would vote against medical marijuana while Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice William Rehnquist voted for it? Was this compassionate conservatism? Actually, they voted on the basis of states' rights, finding the federal government's intrusion into health decisions overreaching. Will the conservative Congress now show compassion and amend the law to allow seriously ill patients the only relief from suffering available to them? Don't count on it. It is sad that the two appointees by the president who didn't inhale couldn't find the compassion to agree with O'Connor's well-reasoned arguments. Atlanta [end]
MONTEGO BAY (IPS) - "Traditionally people have had it, and put it in bottles with rum and used it for various ailments. Over the years, it got demonised by the United States," Freckleton told IPS. Called ganja in Jamaica, mention of marijuana, or cannabis, tends to conjure up images of hedonistic tourists smoking "weed" with easy-going Jamaicans.. The reality for thousands of Jamaicans has been far different, however. Possession of marijuana, even in the small amounts present in a ganja cigarette, popularly known as a spliff, is a criminal offence. The police every year drag hundreds of Jamaicans -- most of them poor young men -- before the courts, where they are fined sums as low as five U.S. dollars, but left with a criminal record. [continues 988 words]
Having grown up in Vancouver, I too can remember Hastings and Main and environs in the balmier days of the 1940s and 1950s, and even the 1960s (Support drug crackdown to give streets back to families, Letters, April 14). Those were times when kids were safe on the street, busting a bottle club (an unlicensed, BYOB drinking establishment) was a big news item and a murder was grist for a month's newspaper stories. In most of the city's neighbourhoods, only the most paranoid locked their doors. [continues 187 words]
Despite often negative audiences and risks to his career, Judge Jim Gray has for years given of his time and knowledge to inform the public of the need to change viewpoints. He deserves a great deal of credit and thanks. Gray's work, along with that of others in the field, undoubtedly will lead eventually to enormous savings to taxpayers, improvement in the lives of addicts and their families, and less temptation to corruption in law enforcement. Jack Miller, Tustin * Dana Parsons' Nov. 15 column on the passage of Proposition 36 and emphasis on treatment for drug addicts instead of imprisonment ("O.C. Confronts Drug War and Turns Left"), was outstanding. [end]
