In the Carson Valley Times, prohibitionist lawyer Jim Hartman was quoted on the initiative petition, ballot Question Two, that provides for regulation of marijuana:

"It's a 13-page initiative that was written by the marijuana industry," Hartman was quoted as saying. "It protects the industry while doing a disservice to Nevadans. It never went through the legislative process.

It hasn't been vetted.

It's tremendously skewed toward the industry."

In fact, the initiative petition was submitted to the 2015 Nevada Legislature for exactly that purpose, to be vetted.

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In a letter to the Reno Gazette-Journal, Genoa prohibitionist Jim Hartman wrote, "Teen and adolescent marijuana use is now 74 percent higher in Colorado than the national average. Teen and adolescent alcohol use has also gone up since legalization. In fact, alcohol sales across the board have increased since marijuana legalization."

According to the latest annual "Healthy Kids" study released last month by the Colorado Department of Health, marijuana has stayed at the same level since legalization. The last pre-legalization year in Colorado, teen pot smoking was at 22 percent. It dropped after legalization to 19.7 percent, and is now at 21.2 percent. This reflects the number who said they had used marijuana in the past month.

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I do not use marijuana, I made a decision more than 30 years ago to not use drugs or alcohol. Having said that, I believe certain drugs should be legalized if for no other reason than alcohol is legal.

The problem I find is this: How do you test to assure that people who show up for work are not impaired? With alcohol it is simple; you blow into a machine, and if you are impaired you go home. Marijuana is different. The THC stays in your system for weeks, if not months. So if you are at a party Saturday night and you smoke, how do you prove you did not ingest these substances on your way to work Monday?

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Steve Sebelius's July 1 column ("Asking the right question on marijuana") correctly reported on Gov. Brian Sandoval's opposition to the legalization of marijuana in Nevada; noted that more young people would likely try the drug if it were legalized; acknowledged that workplace issues would increase; and admitted that a "black market" would still exist after legalization. On those points we agree. However, Mr. Sebelius's conclusion frames a "seminal issue" narrowly for voters, focusing on his belief in the right of someone to use marijuana in a "free society." He reaches that result without any regard to the effect of legalization on others.

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What to Watch for in the Question 2 Campaign

August 28, 1953: California Attorney General Edmund (Pat) Brown announced that the fight against marijuana was "showing marked results."

Voters have become accustomed to seeing and hearing the truth shaved in political campaigns. Yet it often comes in a subjective form. Yes, Candidate A is misrepresenting Candidate B about Issue C, but it's done in a way that it hangs from the edge of truth by the fingernails and no one can actually say it was a case of lying. That word is rarely used in political campaigns.

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So Gov. Brian Sandoval, the former attorney general and federal judge, has come out squarely against the legalization of recreational marijuana in Nevada.

The governor told the Las Vegas Sun that, while he's personally never used the drug, he's concerned about the impact legalization would have on young people.

For the record, the November initiative known as Question 2 would allow only people age 21 and older to possess one ounce of marijuana for personal use.

Like the governor, I've never used marijuana, so my thoughts on the subject are purely academic. And my primary concerns about Question 2 are less about the drug itself, and more about the mechanics of legalization.

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Nevada voters should brace for millions of dollars from out-of-state "Big Marijuana" interests supporting legalization of recreational pot on the November ballot. These corporate pot promoters will try to repeat what worked for them in legalizing marijuana in Colorado in 2012. There, they financially overwhelmed opponents by five to one, spending $3.4 million (90 percent from outside Colorado) in passing legalization.

The enormous financial advantage for pro-pot advertising in Colorado overcame opposition to legalization from most all public officials-across the political spectrum from liberal Democrats, like Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, to Republicans, like Attorney General John Suthers and U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a Tea Party favorite. The two leading newspapers in Colorado, the Denver Post and Colorado Springs Gazette, opposed legalization, as did the Colorado Education Association and the Greater Denver Chamber of Commerce.

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Nevada voters should now brace against millions of dollars from out-of-state "Big Marijuana" interests supporting Question 2 on the November ballot, the legalization of recreational marijuana. Voters need to realize that by voting "yes" on Question 2, they will be adopting all provisions of a 12-page initiative written by large corporate marijuana interests. Nevadans need to know what it is not. This initiative isn't a Nevada-based libertarian effort to "decriminalize" or "legalize" marijuana.

Rather, the initiative is a special interest "business plan" crafted by and for large marijuana industry donors. It qualified for the ballot as a result of pot promoters paying $660,000 to mercenary signature-gatherers. Passage will give monopoly powers to existing medical marijuana retailers and liquor wholesalers, while criminalizing Nevada citizens growing marijuana within 25 miles of the proponents' pot shops. "Big Marijuana" wants to buy through an initiative that which they could not achieve in the scrutiny and compromise required by the legislative process. In reality, this initiative is phony "legalization."

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A political action committee backing recreational marijuana legalization has recently seen a stream of green, as in cash.

The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the pro-recreational marijuana PAC, has raised $285,500 this year, a June 11 filing with the secretary of state's office shows. That number is nearly half of what the group raised in 2014, when the initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use first appeared on the ballot.

More than half of the 2016 fundraising total came from June 7-9, according to the filing; most of the money came from Nevada marijuana companies such as Terra Tech Corp., Greenmart Of Nevada, Medical Marijuana of Las Vegas and Paradise Wellness Center.

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Nevada billionaire and Sands Las Vegas CEO Sheldon Adelson once proposed the U.S. nuke Iran, and donates to Republican Party candidates who share his uncritical and unwavering support for Israel. He has lobbied to expand the Interstate Wire Act to outlaw all online gambling instead of just sports betting. He is currently lobbying for a special session of the Nevada Legislature this summer to approve his scheme to bring the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas by an increase in the hotel room tax. If the new Las Vegas football stadium is such a great idea, why doesn't Mr. Adelson use some more of his own considerable fortune to build it?

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There's An Antidote for Heroin Overdose, and a Former Addict Is Among Those Working to Spread It Far and Wide

Joshua Livernois woke up hazy, sick and splashed with Dr. Pepper in a hospital bed in Salinas, California. He couldn't piece together the events of the previous day or so, and he's still not even sure which year it was, probably 2005 or '06. He'd been using heroin off and on for about 10 years and almost daily for five.

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In a June 7 editorial, the Las Vegas Review-Journal claimed, "And no matter how much pot enthusiasts argue otherwise, marijuana is both addictive-one in 10 people who try pot will become hooked on it-and a gateway to more deadly drugs that kill more than 45,000 Americans a year."

The gateway theory has been around for decades-long before any research on drugs had been done. Thus, it plainly originated as a product of supposition, not of science. One version of it in the early 20th century said that tobacco always leads to harder stuff. Con man Charles Towns, who ran "clinics" where alleged cures for drug addiction were offered, said, "It [tobacco use] always precedes alcoholism and drug addiction. I've never had a drug case or an alcoholic case (excepting a few women) that didn't have a history of excessive smoking."

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I'll say this for the drug legalizers: They're persistent. Once again, for the third time in the past 10 years, the usual suspects are back in Nevada with an initiative petition to legalize "recreational" marijuana in the Silver State.

We defeated them twice before on 60-40 votes and I hope we hand them another well-deserved setback in November. Led by the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), and financed by people like left-wing radical George Soros, fast-talking potheads will try to convince Nevada voters recreational marijuana would be good for our state. Not satisfied with so-called "medical" marijuana, they want to push the legal drug boundaries even further.

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The risk of developing lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, is 10 times higher in those who smoke anything. All forms of smoking, including smokeless tobacco, put the user at increased risk for cancer of any part of the oral cavity, from lip and tongue to mouth and throat.

The American Medical Association in an updated report labeled marijuana "a dangerous drug." Tolerance in users develops rapidly and leads to escalating use.

These facts should be taken into consideration before voting to legalize recreational use. Many physicians feel continued use can lead to psychological changes.

Donna Andress

Searchlight

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Veterans recently joined a tour of a local dispensary and testing lab to tell their stories of how medical marijuana has improved their lives since they left the military.

The tour was hosted by the Las Vegas Medical Marijuana Association, which was formed to promote the medical marijuana industry in Nevada. The association recognizes the use of cannabis to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments.

"Marijuana changed my whole life," said Cristina Alfonso-Zea, an Army veteran who uses medical marijuana to treat PTSD. "From the time I left the military, I attempted suicide every year."

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Nevada Voters Should Turn Down Legal Pot

At the same time Nevadans will help elect a president, they will also determine whether to legalize recreational marijuana

And while it may seem like a no-brainer in a free-wheeling state known for legalized gambling and a lax approach to prostitution, recreational weed comes with health, safety and social costs that make legalizing marijuana a dangerous proposal for Nevadans.

State ballot Question 2 in the November election would make it legal for people 21 and over to possess up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational use. A 15 percent tax would be applied to legal pot sales and revenues generated would be earmarked for education.

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Police and prosecutors across the country have for years beaten back most serious efforts to reform civil forfeiture statutes, which allow law enforcement to seize property from people who have never been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime.

But signs abound that justice and due process may eventually prevail.

Civil forfeiture laws proliferated in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs and were intended to ensure that crime bosses didn't profit from their shadowy pursuits. But their aggressive application in many jurisdictions has also led to hundreds of high-profile abuses involving innocent people forced to surrender cash, homes, cars, jewelry and other valuables that the authorities merely suspected of being connected to a crime.

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Kudos to letter writer Richard Shengulette for calling out the drug users who imperil innocent drivers on our highways (May 31 Review-Journal). Back in my day as a police officer, booze was the drug of choice and almost 50 percent of fatal traffic accidents were attributed to it. In this new age of the millennial, we can now add heroin, pharmaceuticals, cocaine, and of course, marijuana, to the list of causation factors.

Mr. Shengulette ended his letter by stating that the public should know who the politicians are that promote the legalization of such drugs. I can give him the name of one politician whose name pops up constantly here in Las Vegas as a chief supporter for the legalization of marijuana movement: state Sen. Tick Segerblom.

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Regarding the drug issue, let's cut through all the political correctness and revert to reality.

For most of my adult years, I drove big rigs. Perhaps you are aware of a federal law stating that any driver can be drug tested at any time. I wonder how this would work for all the drug users. As soon as a company looking for quality employees at top wages mentions a drug screening test, half of the potential applicants spontaneously get up and leave.

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Workers with the state of Nevada are using regulatory power to stop many cancer patients from getting medical marijuana, in an effort to curb pot tourists from California.

By law, Nevada allows visitors from other states to use their home state's medical marijuana cards to buy medical weed at dispensaries. This is called "reciprocity."

As much as half of Nevada dispensary business comes from reciprocity, especially from California, where doctors typically hand patients paperwork instead of making them go fetch state-issued ID cards.

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