Pubdate: Thu, 29 Sep 2011
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2011 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n589/a01.html
Author: Kenneth Williams

LEGALIZE IT!

Re "Dirty business" (Cover feature, by Howard Hardee, Sept. 22):

While I applaud the efforts of Det. Doug Patterson and his colleagues 
in their efforts to rid our public lands of the horrible cartel 
growers, cannabis still needs to be legalized. We have to stop 
locking people up and ruining their lives over a plant that is safer 
to consume than beer, cigarettes or Tylenol.

Patterson is conveniently not thinking through the issue of 
legalization. When marijuana prohibition finally ends in California, 
we can simply outlaw gardens on public lands. Patterson and his crew 
would still be hard at work "weeding out" the cartel grows.

At the same time, the rest of us would enjoy the same freedom that 
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington enjoyed and took advantage 
of-the legal right to grow and use hemp. The more legal, above-board 
growers we have supplying the market, the less demand there will be 
for cartel-grown cannabis. Eventually Patterson and his colleagues 
will be able to focus their efforts on such things as meth labs, 
cocaine traffickers, rapists, murderers and thieves.

How refreshing it would be to see law enforcement actually working or 
real crime, rather than focusing on what people are smoking or 
eating. It always amazes me how stupid an otherwise intelligent 
public official can get when confronted with the issue of marijuana. 
It's like their brains shut off and no amount of logic or reasoning 
can turn them back on.

Kenneth Williams

Yuba City
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