Pubdate: Fri, 06 Aug 1999
Source: Norfolk Daily News (NE)
Copyright: 1999 Norfolk Daily News
Contact:  525 Norfolk Ave., Norfolk, Nebraska 68702
Fax: (402) 371-5802
Website: http://www.norfolkne.com/dalynews.htm
Author: Arthur Sobey

LOST ITS MIND

Dear Editor,

In his letter of Friday, July 30, "Lost its mind," Michael Bernhardt
begins by chastising the Daily News for practicing the highest form of
free-speech journalism; room for opposing views, and ends by assigning
moral qualities to a plant; that somehow marijuana is "wrong."

Marijuana isn't right or wrong. My goodness, it's just a plant. It is
a God-given resource for living. It was put here on earth to use just
like all other plants. Genesis 1:29 speaks thusly of
hemp/cannabis/marijuana and other plants: "Behold I have given you
every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and
every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."

According to the 1998 Monitoring The Future study, an annual federally
funded student self-reporting drug survey done through the University
of Michigan by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, 90% of 12th
graders considered marijuana to be fairly easy or very easy to get.
90%!!! After thirty years of marijuana prohibition, 90% of high school
seniors say it's "EASY" to score pot. As an adult who understands the
black market, I agree with their analysis. I submit that our drug
control problems can't get any worse than they are today.

I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I am sick and tired of
wasting tens of billions of dollars every year for a drug policy that
simply doesn't work; a drug policy that puts our children at greater
risk than no policy at all. After a 30 year long civil war against 70
million marijuana users and their families, over 13 million arrests
for marijuana crimes, an eightfold increase in prison inmates, after
the expenditure of a trillion dollars on marijuana prohibition, what
do we have to show for our hard-earned tax money???

Drugs are cheaper, more available and stronger than ever before, and
school children with $20 can buy marijuana or any other drug, 24 hours
a day, seven days a week, anyplace in the USA. It sounds more like a
drug non-control policy. What kind of fools are we to tolerate
government stupidity of this magnitude?

It's long past time for a change in drug policy. What we have been
doing simply doesn't work. Our responsibility to our children demands
we find a better way.

How about...Regulate and educate instead of incarcerate?

sincerely,

Arthur Sobey

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