News

Orchard Park Woman Believes Drug Could Help Treat Daughter's Severe Seizures Wendy Conte thinks she has found something that could enable her daughter, Anna, to live without a tube constantly feeding drugs into her belly in hopes of staving off the severe seizures that have plagued her nearly the entire 81/2 years of her life.

The Final Decision Will Come Next Week on Smoking in Public View. The Denver City Council made a surprise move Monday, reversing an earlier decision that would have banned smoking marijuana on private property if it was in public view.

Zoning Vote Delayed Redmond Ridge Residents Fight Indoor Growing Site Planned for Business Park About 30 residents of Redmond Ridge told the Metropolitan King County Council on Monday that allowing legal indoor marijuana growing in their community's business park would be detrimental to their children.

A Red-Tape Backlog Finds Stores Running Minus a Final License. Nearly 100 Colorado medical marijuana businesses are operating without a finalized state license, the remnants of a bureaucratic backlog now stretching back more than three years.

Opinions

This week marks a tragic anniversary for the U.S. Coast Guard as we remember the death of Senior Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne. He was killed in the line of duty off the Santa Barbara coast as he protected his shipmates while attempting to interdict a high-speed "panga" engaged in illicit smuggling between Mexico and Southern California. Once thought to be a scourge limited to our southwest border regions, maritime drug smuggling is now migrating north, with vessels delivering millions of dollars in illicit drugs under cover of darkness to our Northern California beaches.

If you were to take a walk with your family past storefronts in Venice Beach, California, you would likely pass by a number of "medical" marijuana dispensaries.

No Problem. Police Will Bust You Anyway The costly, counterproductive war on drugs has turned the United States into incarceration nation. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, 716 of every 100,000 people in this country are locked up, by far the highest rate in the world, well ahead of such beacons of freedom as Rwanda, Cuba and Russia.

As time goes on, citizens and governmental officials throughout our country increasingly recognize the necessity of expanding options for health care. In my many years in the Legislature, for instance, I have been active in establishing and maintaining the regulation and growth of the chiropractic profession, facilitating organ and tissue transplants, and establishing and expanding subsidized prescriptions for senior citizens.

Letters

As a person affected by a rare neuromuscular disorder, I took offense at the headline "21 Seek Chance To Sell Pot" [Dec. 2, Page 1]. It was a poor choice of words, suggesting a picture of street thugs selling to recreational dopeheads rather than legitimate professionals providing a legal medication to patients.

To the editor: Social intervention by the government always brings unintended consequences to the table. Drug prohibition is no different.

To the editor: Regarding Glenn Cook's Nov. 24 column ("Medical marijuana going to pot?"), not only should medical marijuana be made available to Nevada patients in need, but adult recreational use should be legal too. The days when politicians can get away with confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a grand success.

Rep. Trey Radel was recently arrested for buying cocaine from an undercover agent and has been sentenced to a year's probation. So that's what happens to the "War on Drugs" when the individual arrested is white and powerful? Meanwhile, poor black and Hispanic men and women who have been and are being charged with similar possession of marijuana and other drugs like cocaine serve lengthy prison sentences or live the rest of their lives under a felony arrest and/ or conviction. Yet, some continue to refer to this as a "criminal justice system." Where is the justice in the system?

Re "Blame the policy, not the plant" (Cover feature, by David Downs, Nov. 21): It is true that marijuana prohibition is the cause of all problems related to marijuana. It is not true that marijuana grows cause major ecological damage compared to other industries. So please stop all these ridiculous histrionics about damage caused by evil pot growers and/or evil pot prohibition until you have done something about the following problems.

To the editor - I personally find it very hypocritical that the Yakima City Council has decided to ban the manufacture, distribution and sale of recreational marijuana within the city limits.

Re: A shift in attitudes on marijuana (Nov. 26, letter) This letter invites the question: What will it take to formalize the shift? Justice Louis Brandeis spoke approvingly of the 'laboratory of the states' as the test bed for proposed changes in social policy. Florida has a chance to become one of those states, and Florida voters need not wait for their Legislature to wake up.