USA TODAY's coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on medical marijuana did not mention the outrage many physicians feel when the federal government interferes in medical decision-making ("Patients who use marijuana fear worst if forced to stop," Cover story, News, Tuesday). While I understand that the ruling in this case is about the application of the commerce clause, I am saddened that the justices paid little attention to states' rights and still less to the rights of patients. Whether to use cannabis in a given case should be decided by a patient and his or her physician. [continues 74 words]
Greg Goldmakher, Dallas [end]
Thank you for writing about the Human Rights Watch report on the war on drugs. The racial disparities in sentencing brought to light by the report are not surprising when one realizes that the war on drugs has from it inception been a means of suppressing minorities in the USA ("Study:" War on drugs is stacked against blacks," News, Thursday). Drugs associated with particular ethnic groups were outlawed in a conscious effort to control those groups. Hamilton Wright, who helped promote the first federal drug laws in the early part of the 20th century, used this reasoning to support cocaine prohibition: Cocaine is often the direct incentive to the crime of rape by blacks, he said (The New York Times, March 11, 1911). Other like Wright used similar language when they talked about opium use by Chinese or marijuana use by Mexicans. [continues 68 words]
Greg Goldmakher [end]
The growing use of ecstasy illustrates a problem that the American public is at last beginning to understand: Prohibition failed for a reason. The police can't stamp out the production and use of drugs that people want to take. There is no way to prevent the sale of a drug to kids. And when a drug is illegal, it is impossible to impose standards of purity and safety. Instead of responsible manufacturers and distributors, we have the underworld in charge. [end]
Editor -- On May 11, The Chronicle reported ``S.F. Mayor Wants Cops to Seize Drug Buyers' Cars.'' It would be an understatement to say that I am appalled. I visit San Francisco occasionally to see family members, and I have always been under the impression that the politicians of San Francisco are progressive folks who have resisted the insanity being practiced everywhere under the thundercloud of a ``War on Drugs.'' Thankfully, a bipartisan group of the House Judiciary Committee has introduced a civil asset forfeiture reform bill which would curb the gross violations of constitutional rights being committed in the vain attempt to make this Prohibition work. It has the support of representatives as politically far apart as Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Bob Barr, R-Ga. Prohibition was conceived by people who still believed in phrenology, bloodletting and spontaneous generation of maggots from meat. No wonder it didn't work. The only wonder is that we are still trying. GREG GOLDMAKHER Dallas [end]
When the voters of California decided, via Proposition 215, that medical marijuana is to be permitted, Mr. Lungren actively worked to subvert the will of the people through his connections with the federal government. I cannot believe that someone who openly flouts the will of the voters of California would be a good representative of their wishes in the governor's office. Greg Goldmakher Dallas [end]
First, the science is shoddy. The fact that marijuana raises dopamine levels just like cocaine and heroin do says absolutely nothing about its likelihood to lead to the use of other drugs. Anything that causes pleasure does the same thing. Chocolate has been shown to do the same thing. Is chocolate, then, a gateway drug as well? Furthermore, the conditions used in the studies reported are completely unrealistic, and no conclusions can really be drawn from them which apply to real use of the drug. The scientists who wrote the articles acknowledge that there is no basis in these studies for the gateway hypothesis, but the press, including your paper, seems to be acting as if there were. [continues 62 words]
Two points in regard to your July 2 editorial, "Marijuana Impact New studies make some troubling discoveries." First, the science is shoddy. The fact that marijuana raises dopamine levels just like cocaine and heroin do says absolutely nothing about its likelihood to lead to the use of other drugs. Anything that causes pleasure does the same thing. Chocolate has been shown to do the same thing. Is chocolate, then, a gateway drug as well? Furthermore, the conditions used in the studies reported are completely unrealistic, and no conclusions can really be drawn from them which apply to real use of the drug. The scientists who wrote the articles acknowledge that there is no basis in these studies for the gateway hypothesis, but the press, including your paper, seems to be acting as if there were. [continues 62 words]
At the end of the column, Mr. Rich suggests that if we were to legalize and regulate marijuana, it would actually be harder for kids to get it than it is now. This is absolutely correct. When I was in high school, about a decade ago, I knew exactly where to go if I had wanted to get pot. I could not, however, get alcohol, since Massachusetts (where I lived at the time) had a very strict enforcement of the drinking age. Illegal drug dealers have no incentive to ask customers for ID, but legitimate store owners do, for fear of losing their business. [continues 100 words]
