I am dumbfounded by the backlash over House Bill 155, which would require drug testing for welfare recipients.

The defense is that offenders' children will suffer. More than having addicted parents incapable of caring for them?

If my husband or I test positive for drugs, we lose our jobs and our kids would suffer. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Once you depend on the state for your income, a lot of your choices should be made for you. If you can't afford to feed your kids, how do you afford drugs?

I am tired of working to pay for other people to make irresponsible choices on my dime. Stop rewarding bad behavior!

Ronnie Jones

West Jordan

[end]

It was with disgust that I read "Needless tragedy" (Forum, Feb. 12). Christoper Holifield claims that if marijuana were legal, Officer Jared Francom would not have been killed and the wounding of the other officers would have never happened. What a pathetic excuse for legalizing the use and distribution of marijuana!

Matthew David Stewart is accused of maiming and murdering law enforcement heroes as they were protecting society. That is the way he reacted when faced with adversity. The man performed an evil act because of his personality, not because marijuana is illegal.

I am saddened for the suffering of the officers and their families. And I am appalled at such pathetic reasoning to legalize a hallucinogenic drug.

DeAnna Bangerter Kennard

Heber City

[end]

Thanks for Christopher Holifield's thoughtful letter, "Needless tragedy" (Forum, Feb. 12). When I read about Ogden police Officer Jared Francom's death, I felt both anger and sadness because our once-free country is now a police state.

When our police can and do kick in the doors of American citizens in the middle of the night because they suspect the occupants are using or growing some "unapproved" natural herb and medicine, we no longer have a free country.

The words "freedom" and "justice" should be removed from our monuments and government buildings. Send the Statue of Liberty back to France or rename it the "Statue of Hypocrisy."

The most incarcerated nation in history does not deserve a Statue of Liberty. A country where its adult citizens are not free to self-medicate, even in the privacy of their own homes, does not deserve a Statue of Liberty.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ari

[end]

My sincerest condolences to the family of Ogden police Officer Jared Francom, who was killed in the line of duty on Jan. 3. The officers were just doing their job in executing issued warrants.

But let's look at the larger picture. If marijuana were already legal for medicinal use in Utah, as it is in 16 other states and the District of Columbia, this tragic incident wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't have happened because Matthew David Stewart would have been legally using marijuana medicinally, and he would have been under strict supervision by a doctor.

[continues 62 words]

Opponents of the movement to allow marijuana use for medical purposes have long warned it is the foot in the door toward what supporters really want - full acceptance of recreational marijuana use. Those warnings are gradually coming true.

Later this week, Washington state is expected to certify petition signatures to place a measure on November's ballot legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes. Colorado officials may do the same with an initiative petition there soon. Both states already allow medical marijuana, as do 14 others and the District of Columbia. Supporters of the initiatives say they have a responsible approach that restricts usage to adults. Washington would allow sales through only those outlets licensed by the state, which would control production. Drunken driving laws would be changed to include limits on the blood content of THC, the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana.

[continues 349 words]

Twenty or so years ago I had a student who spent her summers as a Forest Service trail crew chief in northern California.

Knowing her area to be a hotbed of illegal marijuana growing, I asked what she and her crew did when they encountered a patch of "weed."

"Our orders are clear," said she. "We immediately turn around and leave, before we catch a [rifle] slug." Serious stuff, this mobile agriculture.

Since that time, fans of marijuana have claimed that it is useful for treating all sorts of medical conditions, including migraines, arthritis, cancer, glaucoma and many conditions of hard-to-treat pain. But federal law was and still is -- clear: Marijuana is classed as a Schedule I substance, meaning that it has no accepted medical use but possesses a high potential for abuse due to its psychoactive properties.

[continues 488 words]

Editor,

Not only does God, the ecologican, indicate he created all the seed-bearing plants saying they are all good in the first book of Genesis (letter published on-line Jan. 24, "Leviticus doesn't forbid the use of marijuana), it's literally the very first page of the Bible. That's no accident. The only biblical restriction placed on cannabis (marijuana) is to accept it with thankfulness (1 Timothy 4:1-5). It also predicts cannabis prohibition before it occurs and describes the type of people who will do the evil.

[continues 167 words]

Editor,

The authorized version of the King James Bible gives Christians the right to every herb, including marijuana. We don't have to look very far. The first book of Genesis mentions herbs four times with God saying in verse 29, "I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth." God also said after bringing forth herbs, "God saw that it was good." And, again in verse 31, "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Psalm 104:14 stated, "and herbs for the service of man."

[continues 239 words]

Editor,

Profound condolences for all the officers and their families recently suffering a loss. Their lives are so sadly disrupted by such an ongoing problem, this endless drug war. So many casualties of a war with no end in sight. It's a sad reality for all concerned.

With all respect and appreciation for our police and all serving the law, there must be a way to serve a warrant to persons of suspicion.

Unfortunately, now the suspect is an alleged killer, a shooter who shot at our police and killed another human being. He was somebody's son, husband, daddy and friend. This loved one is forever gone away.

Drugs are here and whether legal or illegal, it just continues to destroy families. Let's all keep praying for this war to end.

Christine Lopez-Jarvis

West Haven

[end]

Editor,

This letter is in response to the letter to the editor in the Standard-Examiner Friday, January 20, "Home invader may shout: 'Police!'"

How dare the writer discredit officer Jared Francom who gave his life protecting the citizens of our city. To say he did not die for a noble cause demonstrates the writer's lack of knowledge of what is going on in our society today. His solution is to re-legalize all drugs? I don't know what rock he crawled out from under. Is growing marijuana legal in Mesa, Arizona? How inconsiderate the writer is to make such an outlandish statement in a time of loss for the officer's family and for those of us in Ogden who appreciate what he gave for us.

Larry Sturdevant

Roy

[end]

Editor,

I was a Los Angeles County deputy marshall from 1949 to 1952. I served documents, including warrants on Alameda Street and Central Avenue in Los Angeles County California. These are two of the toughest streets in L.A. County. If we were having trouble serving a document, we were trained never to approach the front door directly in front of it. Training the officers to do a frontal assault on a door involving narcotics is about as idiotic as it gets. Historically, narcotics equals guns, narcotics and cash from the criminal's standpoint, are worth shooting for. Otherwise, why the guns?

[continues 152 words]

OGDEN -- Indoor marijuana operations, like the one the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force reportedly discovered just before a deadly shootout earlier this month at the home of Matthew David Stewart, are not that common, a Drug Enforcement Agency official said Wednesday.

Most marijuana in Utah is grown outdoors, because there is plenty of open land and water sources, according to Sue Thomas, a spokeswoman with the DEA in Salt Lake City.

The main purpose for growing marijuana indoors is to keep the operation secret, Thomas said.

[continues 467 words]

Editor,

Regarding the Jan. 15 "Wasatch Rambler" column by Charles Trentelman, "An officer dies fighting drugs, a judge consoles a drug dealer." Under the rule of law, the private growing of marijuana would be constitutionally protected and this gun battle would have never occurred.

The police invaded Matthew David Stewart's house with a search warrant for his production of a controlled substance, marijuana, alleged for personal medicinal use. I have claimed that criminalizing marijuana because it has no medicinal use is an unreasonable and unnecessary regulation of our individual fundamental rights to liberty, to property and to privacy and contravenes the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution of the United States. www.ursm.us

[continues 59 words]

Editor,

I'm writing about Charles F. Trentelman's not-so-thoughtful "Wasatch Rambler" column "An officer dies fighting drugs, a judge consoles a drug dealer." Officer Jared Francom did not die for a noble cause. Officer Francom died during a home invasion in the middle of the night. The person who allegedly killed Francom was growing marijuana for his own personal use.

Several decades ago, I was robbed on the street by two assailants who shouted "police freeze." About thirty seconds later I had a gun pointed at me and one of the robbers was going though my pockets.

[continues 86 words]

On Wednesday, several thousand police buried Ogden Officer Jared Francom who died serving a search warrant on Matthew Stewart, who was suspected of growing pot.

That same day, a sympathetic federal judge in Salt Lake City presided over some fancy legal maneuvers to keep a convicted drug dealer, Brigham City Dr. Dewey C. MacKay, out of prison.

Federal District Judge Dee Benson even apologized to MacKay for the trouble MacKay was having. Benson said he can't imagine "the nightmare" MacKay and his family are going through.

[continues 542 words]

Photo Found Of Suspected Shooter Dressed As Terrorist

OGDEN - Weber County Attorney Dee Smith doesn't know when Matthew Stewart will be transferred from the hospital to jail. But he is prepared to file charges when he is - and he will seek the death penalty.

Smith said Stewart, accused of shooting and killing Ogden police officer Jared Francom and wounding five other officers, will likely face charges of capital murder, eight counts of attempted aggravated murder and cultivation of marijuana.

There were more officers affected than just those who were shot, Smith said during a news conference Monday.

[continues 711 words]

Ogden's interim police chief spoke this week of the "law-enforcement family" that was mourning the death of Agent Jared Francom. And while no one outside that family can fully comprehend the pain and sense of loss being felt this week, it should be noted that all of Ogden, and the entire state of Utah, as well, are part of an extended family that shares in the sorrow for a senseless tragedy and an awful loss.

Law-enforcement officers are the threads that bind the fabric of civilization. More than just investigating crimes, writing citations and making arrests, they make the rule of law an action phrase, rather than just a principle in a civics textbook. They provide a recourse from the minority who would plunder or abuse for their own gain, and they allow peaceful people to prosper and exercise liberties.

[continues 277 words]

OGDEN -- Michael Stewart stood in front of a Christmas decoration still dangling from his front door on Ogden's East Bench and said he is heartbroken over the shooting death of a police officer at his son's home late Wednesday evening.

He's also angry.

"Why couldn't they have done a little homework?" he said of the police.

"If they had, they'd have known he'd be out at 11 o'clock (in the evening)," leaving the house to go to work. He said his son would have been easy to arrest then.

[continues 645 words]

OGDEN - Investigators converged on a cordoned-off Ogden neighborhood Thursday to continue the grim task of investigating the shooting death of a veteran policeman and the wounding of five other officers in a fierce shootout.

The investigators seemed to be focused Thursday morning on collecting evidence from the barren backyard of the home of suspect Matthew David Stewart, 37, of 3268 Jackson Ave.

Stewart was wounded in the gun battle Wednesday night when a dozen agents with the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force attempted to serve a warrant at his residence. He sustained non-life threatening injuries and is under guard at Ogden Regional Hospital.

[continues 593 words]

We extend our deepest sympathies to the family of Ogden police officer, Jared Francom, killed on Wednesday night while performing his duties as a member of the Weber Morgan Narcotics Strike Force. While 12 officers were serving a search warrant in Ogden, a suspect, Matthew Davis Stewart, 37, opened fire on the officers.

Francom and five other officers were hit. The wounded officers -- whose conditions range from serious to critical -- are Shawn Grogan, Kasey Burrell and Michael Rounkles of the Ogden department, Sgt. Nate Hutchinson of the Weber County Sheriff's Office, and Jason VanderWarf of the Roy Police Department. Stewart, who was also shot, is in custody. The "knock-and-announce" search warrant occurred at 8:40 p.m.

[continues 189 words]