Pubdate: 27 Feb 1999 Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Copyright: 1999 Los Angeles Times. Contact: (213) 237-4712 Website: http://www.latimes.com/ Forum: http://www.latimes.com/home/discuss/ Note: Headline by MAP THE PROBLEMS WITH OUR NATIONAL PROHIBITION DRUG POLICY Dear Editor; California state Senator Vasconcellos has just touched the tip of the iceberg of the problems with our national prohibition drug policy. The dominant puritanical minority that controls the congress with coercion, fear and the politics of personal destruction have also subverted our federal courts. After the federal sentencing commission proposed easing marijuana sentencing, the congress responded by refusing to approve any more appointments to the commission. The last member, Senior U.S. Judge Richard P. Conaboy of Scranton, Pa, left the commission last October. The result is that the federal courts no longer have the guidance of the commission and thus federal law and the nations' courts are effectively subverted. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, in his 1998 Year-End Report of the Federal Judiciary, identified the failure of the congress to confirm new appointments to the commission as the number one problem facing the court. Most judges fear rendering constitutionally consistent decisions because these vindictive members of the congress will censure them. While a censure won't remove a judge from the court it will foreclose any upward mobility in the system. Hence, there is no justice in the federal courts. This is the judicial environment that Peter McWilliams is subjected to. If the state of California is to save the life of Mr. McWilliams it should step in and take him into protective custody from the federal prosecutors and provide to him the life saving marijuana that he needs to stabilize and strengthen his body. The state should stand up to the federal persecutors in the name of justice and protect their citizen from a federal government gone mad. Pat Rogers Allentown, Pa. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake