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SentLTE-Digest Saturday, September 6 2014 Volume 14 : Number 044

001 LTE: Re: 'Richardson: Cooperation needed to make Salt River, East Valle
    From: Kirk Muse <>
002 LTE: ...opponents scrape the bottom of the barrel
    From: John Chase <>
003 LTE: I cannot tell you how frustrating it is
    From: John Chase <>
004 LTE: Amendment 2 dialog has devolved into personalities.
    From: John Chase <>


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Subj: 001 LTE: Re: 'Richardson: Cooperation needed to make Salt River, East Valley safe from gangs'
From: Kirk Muse <>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 13:27:09 -0700

To the Editor of The East Valley Tribune:

I'm writing about Bill Richardson's thoughtful guest column: 
"Richardson: Cooperation needed to make Salt River, East Valley safe 
from gangs" (9-2-14).

It seems Richardson failed to mention the primary reason street gangs 
exist: illegal drugs.

 From 1920 to 1933, alcohol and gangs went hand-in-hand. Back then, 
alcohol was completely unregulated, untaxed and controlled and 
distributed by criminal gangs — just like meth, cocaine and other 
recreational drugs are today.

If all drugs were legally available in local pharmacies for pennies per 
dose, would criminals gangs be involved with them? No. Would drug users 
be constantly seeking new drug users to sell drugs to pay for their 
habit? No.

If we re-legalized all our illegal drugs so that they could be sold by 
licensed and regulated businesses for pennies per dose, would this 
eliminate our drug problems? No. Will we ever be able to eliminate our 
drug problems? No. However, doing so would substantially reduce the 
crime rate and increase public safety.

Regulated and controlled drugs would be of known purity, known potency 
and known quality, which would make them very much safer than today’s 
black-market drugs.

But what message would we send to children if we re-legalized all 
illegal drugs so they could be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed 
business establishments?

The same message we send to children today when we allow products such 
as alcohol and tobacco to be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed 
business establishments.

A free country’s government cannot protect its adult citizens from 
themselves. A free country’s government has no right to attempt to do so.

Kirk Muse
1741 S. Clearview Ave.
Mesa, Ariz. 85209
(480) 396-3399

Thank you for considering this letter for publication.
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Subj: 002 LTE: ...opponents scrape the bottom of the barrel
From: John Chase <>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 05:03:37 -0700

Sent online to the Tampa Trib

Trib readers knew Amendment 2 was winning even before they opened 
yesterday's paper and found the front page article about the video taken 
of John Morgan at the post-debate celebration with "a microphone in one 
hand and and a drink in the other" using language suitable to that 
occasion. Then Trib readers found the letter reporting Amsterdam has a 
"lost generation" of young people, that their IQ had dropped 10-15 
points due to marijuana, and they were dropping out of high school. I 
have been following the Dutch cannabis situation for 16 years and I know 
that neither statistic about Amsterdam is true.

Meanwhile, millions of Floridians who benefit from medical marijuana, 
and their families, continue to risk arrest as opponents scrape the 
bottom of the barrel to find something -- anything -- to stop it. 
Amendment 2 needs 60% to pass, so it's not a done deal yet, but if 
voters come out to vote, it will. Then perhaps we will have a rational 
conversation about regulation.

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Subj: 003 LTE: I cannot tell you how frustrating it is
From: John Chase <>
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2014 03:01:09 -0700

Sent online to the Tampa Trib a few minutes ago.

I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have no personal experience 
to refute the man-in-the-street "statistics" about the effect that 
Amsterdam's legal pot shops have had on young people there. (Ref: 
"Smoking, Pain And Pot", Sept 2nd).

What I do have is peer-reviewed research papers about states in the U.S. 
that have lived with medical marijuana laws (MMLs) long enough to draw 
conclusions. Every such paper concludes that, as compared to non-MML 
states, (1) violent crime is down, (2) property crime is down, (3) 
opiate overdose deaths are down, and (4) adolescents do not use more 
pot. The only inconclusive report comes from professors of criminology 
at the University of Texas. Their paper agrees with the A/P report in 
the Trib's Sept 2nd issue, "Experts Divided On Whether Pot Legalization 
Poses Driving Hazard". Those experts suggested  that pot and alcohol 
might not mix well together.

At the bottom line, Amendment2 passage would pose no danger at all to 
kids, health or public safety if we could apply to pot smoking the same 
public education model proved effective in reducing cigarette smoking. 
Then the families of millions of bona fide, pot-using patients would no 
longer need to fear arrest.

John Chase
Palm Harbor
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Subj: 004 LTE: Amendment 2 dialog has devolved into personalities.
From: John Chase <>
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 12:21:09 -0700

Editors, Orlando Sentinel -

It was bound to happen; Amendment 2 dialog has devolved into 
personalities. On one hand, "John Morgan" is a legalizer with a loose 
tongue, and the sheriffs benefit from prohibition.  What are facts?

Very few patients or caregivers will go public for fear of arrest, so it 
is hard to know the upside with certainty. But the downside we do know, 
and it is OK.

About a dozen states have lived with medical marijuana laws(MMLs) long 
enough to know, and most of their MMLs are more liberal than 
Amendment2.  Those dozen states, compared to the other 38, have seen 
reductions in opiate overdose deaths, violent crime, property crime and 
traffic fatalities, all with no increase in adolescent use of pot. It is 
documented in peer-reviewed research done by  economists, criminologists 
and emergency medicine doctors at universities in Montana, Texas, Rhode 
Island, Maine, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California, and 
published by the Journal of Adolescent Health, the University of Chicago 
law school, the Public Library of Science and the American Medical 
Association.

It shows that the bad things predicted by opponents of Amendment2 don't 
happen, except the jury is still out on traffic safety. It is known from 
research in France that a drunk driver is more dangerous than a stoned 
driver. What is not known is how the two drugs work together in a 
driver. Soon it will be known, and then the Florida Department of Health 
can set the regulations accordingly, without help from Morgan or the 
sheriffs, please.

John G.Chase
727 787 3085
1620 E Dorchester Dr
Palm Harbor, FL 34684

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End of SentLTE-Digest V14 #44
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Media Awareness Project              /' _ ` _ `\ /'_`)('_`\
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