Regarding Ray Strack's guest column, "Why sheriffs oppose medical pot: Profits, not safety," in the Sept. 20 Sentinel: The backers of Amendment 2 believe that the medical-marijuana industry is best handled by a legal, sensibly regulated market. The prohibitionists, represented by Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, seem to think that industry is best handled by illegally run foreign drug cartels and violent street-level dealers in our neighborhoods. Readers are thus invited to choose with which group they will align this coming November and cast their vote accordingly. Stephen Heath [end]
Who's smoking what in Washington? Re: July 10 commentary "In the nation's drug war, sanity goes up in smoke." Kathleen Parker's column made sense to any of us who weren't born yesterday. The most commonly cited rationale by zealot prohibitionists for waging the war against marijuana users is that it has a host of adverse side effects. But if relative risk was the criteria for defining outlawed drugs, we'd first prosecute use of alcohol, tobacco and a bevy of pharmaceuticals. [continues 101 words]
Re: "Canada scores high on herb " (Gazette, July 10). Bravo, Canada! In the perpetual friendly combat between our countries to be No. 1 on this or that social issue, it appears for the moment that you've bested us with your, um, higher rates of cannabis consumption. It's probably reasonable to conclude cannabis-use levels are likely very similar across North America. But here in the U.S., a wide range of criminal and social sanctions can be levied against any adult who publicly acknowledges a preference for marijuana over martinis. So it's also reasonable to conclude Americans will under-report their true use of the bud. [continues 76 words]
Suggesting that we "raise the price of alcohol" to impede teen-age alcohol access belies the fact that licensed dealers who handle the drug alcohol don't sell to high schoolers, thanks to legal regulation of their businesses. Regulation of risky drugs makes good sense. But we can't regulate those drugs unless they are legal to possess and to distribute. Legalizing currently illicit drugs assures that most all dealing will move off the unregulated street and into licensed businesses that can be easily monitored by state and local authorities. And it would immediately resolve a major dilemma for teen-agers. [continues 54 words]
The officers of the Drug Enforcement Administration are likely the highest paid cops in the free world and they've been gravy-training off American taxpayers for almost 40 years now. What do we get in return for our dough? "Law enforcement officers have long suspected that Alaska is both an exporter and an importer of marijuana." No way! The DEA is telling us that Alaskans both use marijuana, grow it and redistribute it for big bucks? Just think - if the faux police officers of the U.S. DEA can get the needed funding, soon we may learn that (gasp!) Americans most everywhere are using pot, growing pot and selling it, often for big bucks. [continues 135 words]
As a father of two recent high school graduates, I'd like to concur with letter writer Kirk Muse that urine testing students randomly simply motivates those inclined to experimental drug use to gravitate towards heavy impact and water soluble narcotics and speed. Even more discouraging is the message such random, suspicionless urine testing of students sends to the almost two-thirds who will in fact be drug free. They tell us honestly, "I don't use illicit drugs". And those backing the testing reply, "Your word is insufficient proof. You must demonstrate your integrity with a sample of your bodily waste." [continues 151 words]
To the Editor: Re "Congress Hobbles the AIDS Fight" (editorial, June 4): As a recovered drug abuser of crack and powder cocaine, I thank you for this editorial stand. Based on my experiences working in treatment and recovery, I humbly submit that the notion that clean needle exchange programs are enabling and encouraging drug use is nonsense. But make no mistake, every user will eventually stop because perpetual injection drug use is almost physically impossible. While patiently working with those abusers aiming to quit, we benefit as a community by reducing the peripheral and associated disease that is passed by dirty or infected needles. [continues 75 words]
Re: Buying Afghan poppies no solution, letter to the editor, June 5. Letter-writer Colonel Brian MacDonald offers some interesting numbers on world morphine supplies to support his endorsement of keeping illegal the Afghan opium poppy market. What he ignores are the two most prominent reasons for legalizing poppy production -- not only in Afghanistan, but worldwide. First, in the unlikely event producers of morphine and other opiod medicines were to create a surplus in supply, one immediate result would be a great reduction in price. Seems the only ones who might object to that would be the current, relatively small number of legal producers who enjoy the mega-profits assured by an unduly tight supply worldwide. [continues 117 words]
From my distant port I was impressed to read of your County Council's sensible priortizing when they agreed to no longer fund helicopters for police to fly around and look for random marijuana grows they can disrupt and uproot. Talk about make-work projects -- the relentless and never-ending job of police busting marijuana does nothing to increase public safety, and does little to impact the illegal marijuana trade. If police truly want to get a handle on the marijuana trade, they would promote legalization and regulation of distribution instead of leaving control in the hands of random, unmonitored growers. [continues 126 words]
It's smart business to educate our kids about the risks of using drugs, thus making the intentions of Franklin patrolman William Piwtoratsky and the Home News Tribune's related editorial praise of his efforts laudable. That aside, these important messages are best delivered by qualified health care professionals and counselors, not by uniformed police officers and D.A.R.E. Ten- and 11-year-old kids will pretty much do whatever a cop tells them, including the recitation of anti-drug mantras. Such cooperation makes parents smile but ignores that most kids of that age are not able to ask the tough questions to a police officer. [continues 161 words]
Re: 300-Plus Lufkin Fifth-Graders DARE To Stay Away From Drugs (Feb 12) It's smart business to educate our kids about the risks of using drugs. But that message is best delivered by qualified health care professionals and counselors, not by uniformed police officers and DARE. Ten- and 11-year-old kids will pretty much do whatever a cop tells them, including the recitation of anti-drug mantras. Such cooperation makes parents smile, but ignores that most kids of that age are not able to ask the tough questions to a police officer. [continues 151 words]
Editor, Daily News: Re: Sept. 24 guest commentary headlined "World's environment also victim of drug addiction." Wallace Nichols makes astute points about the wasted program known as Plan Colombia and/or the Andean Initiative - two different titles for one utterly failed foreign policy. As a recovered cocaine abuser (clean 11 years now), I weep at the billions of tax dollars spent by the U.S. government to drop poisons on South American farms and fields and to arm soldiers who kill and destroy innocent civilians in their never-ending battle for control of the country of Colombia - currently in de facto control of the coca producers and exporters. [continues 179 words]
Letter writer Robert Sharpe's astute comments about the drug court system are laudable (Public Forum, Sept. 15). However, I'd like to add that problems with adequate funding for your drug courts are assured, given the experience we've had here in Florida, where the drug court system was first introduced. The system's fatal flaw is the failure to make any distinction between the use and the abuse of any drug, most notably marijuana. Thus the well-intentioned drug court model is now jammed with thousands of marijuana clients, whose need for drug treatment is no more than an alcohol user's who drinks a six-pack on the weekend or enjoys wine with his meals. [continues 132 words]
Stan White ["Maligned Marijuana," letters, Sept. 20] asked how long the Drug Enforcement Administration can keep marijuana away from Americans. I dispute the notion that the agency is keeping marijuana from many citizens. Save for the persistent efforts to place obstacles between patients and their medical marijuana, the millions of Americans who want marijuana don't have much trouble getting it. Nor do users of other illicit drugs, despite decades of ever-escalating drug war policies carried out by the DEA. [continues 64 words]
(Re: "High On Hypocrisy," letters, Sept. 20.) Letter writer Cord MacGuire's astute summation of the utter failure of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Afghanistan is worthy of supplement considering the DEA is actively working to oppose Amendment 44 on the basis of being "experts on drugs." The DEA is not just a failure internationally. Here in the United States, save for persistent efforts to place obstacles between state-legal medical marijuana patients and their medicine and other programs aimed at impeding chronic pain patients from getting needed prescription drugs, the DEA is likewise a failure. Few Americans who want marijuana have trouble scoring. Nor do the users of other illicit drugs, despite 35-plus years of ever-escalating drug war policies headed by the DEA. [continues 63 words]
Re: School drug testing sounds like witch hunt, Sept. 24 Times editorial: Your persistent editorial denunciation of proposals to randomly urine-test students for drug metabolites without reasonable cause is welcomed by this parent of three recent high schoolers. It's clear most parents object to the idea of coercing such bodily fluid samples from their teenagers. Less than 2 percent of public schools employ suspicionless urine-testing policies, and most of those do so only when financing the program with federal taxpayer moneys funneled through the Office of National Drug Control Policy. [continues 137 words]
This is in response to the article "Wilbraham's DARE under board scrutiny." (The Republican, Sept. 19.) It's smart business to educate our kids about the risks of using drugs. But that message is best delivered by qualified health care professionals and counselors, not by uniformed police officers and DARE. Ten- and 11-year-old kids will pretty much do whatever a cop tells them, including the recitation of anti-drug mantras. Such cooperation makes parents smile, but ignores that most kids of that age are not able to ask the tough questions to a police officer. [continues 177 words]
It's interesting to note that the only ones who purport coerced urine-testing of students to be "vital" are either government officials or salespeople for so called "drug-testing" companies. Professional urine inspector Bill Loomis tells critics of suspicion-less testing that it's all okey-dokey with "more students than not." As a parent of three recent high school graduates, I submit it's likely fewer complain because many teenagers feel helpless to speak out against such intrusive actions from school officials or their designated contractors. [continues 159 words]
As a recovered abuser of cocaine, alcohol and methamphetamine (clean 11 years), I wanted to echo the smart thinking of letter-writer Connie Kraft. Several decades of accumulated data prove that arresting and jailing drug abusers does nothing long term to solve society's very real problems with substance abuses. Despite this, federal and state drug policy related budgets continue to emphasize turning Americans with a drug problem into Americans with a lifetime criminal record. Such a record, especially when it is a felony, assures a lifetime albatross bearing down the life of the now abuser with far more weight than the damage caused by the use of the drug(s) themselves. [continues 115 words]
As a father of three with the youngest now a high school senior I concur that parents need to be straight up and be available for open and honest discussions about drug use and drug abuse. It would be helpful if the fundamental messages being delivered by our drug czars and drug war supporting legislators were a bit more accurate. In response to the suggestion that making a drug illegal might increase danger and risk, the drug warriors gravely correct us by firmly stating, "Illegal drugs are against the law because they are dangerous". [continues 169 words]
