Eric Sterling, president and co-founder of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, came to speak at Drexel Law School March 24 about the complicated and contradictory legislation behind marijuana. Sterling, whose past activist involvement includes the anti-Vietnam War movement, believes that the United States' current drug policy is counterproductive. A graduate of Haverford College and Villanova University School of Law, he has been an adviser for Students for Sensible Drug Policy since 2000 and the chair of the Alcohol and Other Drug Advisory Council in Montgomery County, Md. [continues 605 words]
Dear Editor, Last week was Earth Week at Drexel, and it was nice to see an initiative for environmental protection that involved individuals rather than government intervention. Drexel Green sponsored many initiatives, including reducing use of bottled water, recycling plastic bags, cleaning up the campus, using electricity wisely and many other topics of interest. Comparing individual contributions to protection of the environment to government intervention makes sense. The government owns about 40 percent of the United States' land mass - - which has been left polluted by the negligent Department of Energy and Defense and the U.S. Military. While not cleaning up its own property, the government continues to spend millions of tax dollars on regulation after regulation against the citizens. [continues 164 words]
Dear Editor, As a retired police officer, the only thought I can add to Mr. Brown's excellent article "America needs to rethink ineffective marijuana prohibition (Jan. 25)," is how public safety would be dramatically improved. I have crunched the numbers and street officers spend about 10 million hours looking for and arresting about 750,000 each year for simple possession. My profession also spends about 10 million hours seeking and arresting 1.4 million DUIs. Imagine if we doubled our hours for DUI enforcement by spending zero time trying to prevent adults smoking pot in their own homes. Instead of having 17,000 citizens slaughtered by drunk drivers, we could nearly cut that in half. Officer Howard J. Wooldridge (retired) Education Specialist, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Washington, D.C. [end]
Dear Editor, Regarding Abraham Brown's thoughtful Jan. 25 column, "America needs to rethink ineffective marijuana prohibition," if health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. White Americans did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda. [continues 58 words]
In the 21st century I find it difficult to grasp why we as Americans have not learned from our mistakes and become better. Decriminalizing marijuana in Pennsylvania and the entire nation subsequently could possibly alleviate some of the drug problems we face here in Philadelphia and the nation at large. The 1920s national prohibition of alcohol, the "noble experiment," was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. However, this did not work and was a wretched disappointment on all counts. [continues 682 words]
Students who are on financial aid and are caught smoking marijuana could see their federal assistance go up in smoke. The Higher Education Act was established in 1965 to provide educational resources for college students through financial aid programs. In 1998, a revision was added to the act to include a drug provision that has since denied or delayed financial aid to 200,000 potential aid recipients because of drug convictions. The drug provision was added to the act as a means of creating a no-tolerance for drug-use atmosphere at college campuses nationwide. [continues 407 words]
