THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
Today's paper brought me an editorial stating that those people locked up for marijuana violations should be freed to make room for more dangerous criminals (``The secret garden'').
What is our world coming to? Next thing you will be doing is talking about making it a legal drug. Should I subscribe to High Times magazine?
Most people today know that marijuana is the most benign street drug that a person could do. When was the last time your paper wrote about a drive-by shooting that involved marijuana? Never!
Is it possible that our benevolent federal government in trying to keep us safe from the horrors of drug addiction by spending billions of our tax dollars on a drug interdiction program that didn't work might have taken the one drug off the street that didn't lead to drug kings in South America, our prisons full of small-time dealers who couldn't have gotten a job in a fast-food restaurant, wholesale murder in our streets and the rest of us hiding under our beds at the sound of the gunfire outside?
Just think, before the federal ``war on drugs,'' drugs really didn't seem to be that much of a problem, certainly not like today. Another ``Big Brother'' solution that went wrong!
If, as New York-based writer Eric Schlosser stated, 3 million people smoke marijuana daily, there are 3 million people who chose to use a drug that won't get them hooked, might make them laugh a lot, might give the convenience stores and fast-food places more business and add slower drivers to the road. It might even help cancer patients with pain control and paraplegics with muscle spasms, not to mention helping glaucoma patients.
Such a turnaround for your paper! Dare we to think that you are showing signs of liberalism? Is there hope for you yet?
Will you next be agreeing with Don Feder that the new gun-control laws are a sham? Keep up the good reports. We are finally seeing both sides of pertinent issues being printed, and it gives us a real opportunity to think for ourselves.
GEORGE F. SCHOCHTERT
Virginia Beach, Sept. 1, 1994 by CNB