REEFER MADNESS

Clearwater, Fla. -- This is considering "Pushing drug myths with our taxes"
(Commentary, May 22). Drug czar John Walters has the unenviable job of
propping up the flawed foundation for federal drug policy and realizes the
urgent need to attack the responsible use of marijuana by 20 million-plus
Americans.

The tax dollars being sucked up by the drug war machine add up to more than
$40 billion annually and more than half of it is focused on marijuana
prohibition. More Americans were arrested for marijuana possession in 2000
than for all violent crime combined. It is truly a law enforcement gravy train.

Clarence Page accurately notes the hyperbole Walters adds to the discussion
of medical marijuana. Most Americans know of the Drug Enforcement
Administration raids on the legal (under state law) medical marijuana
dispensaries in California during the past nine months.

The key prop to government prohibition of marijuana is misrepresenting the
facts about the side effects of use. Until the passage of medical marijuana
laws in eight states during the past six years, the feds were able to do
this primarily by barring any and all research efforts. Allowing legitimate
medical records and histories for such a large patient pool will
effectively refute the remaining reefer madness that to date has kept
Walters and his fellow marijuana warriors in business.

Thanks to Page and the Tribune for providing honest coverage of an issue
that our government officials continue to lie about.

Stephen Heath

DRUG PROHIBITION

Mesa, Ariz. -- Thank you for publishing Clarence Page's outstanding column.
I agree with John P. Walters' assertion that many of those who support the
legalization of marijuana for medical purposes have an agenda beyond just
the legalization of marijuana for medicine.

I am proud to count myself as having such an agenda.

Those who opposed slavery had an agenda, as did those who opposed the mass
murder of Jews and other minorities in Germany. And those who opposed
racial segregation obviously had an agenda.

Those who opposed alcohol prohibition because it was counterproductive and
caused much more harm than it prevented obviously had an agenda.

And, yes, we who oppose recreational drug prohibition because it is
counterproductive and is causing much more harm than it prevents proudly
have an agenda.

Kirk Muse

WAR ON DRUGS

Eau Claire, Wis. -- The Clarence Page piece on the drug czar's recent
comments was some of the straightest shooting I've ever read about drugs.

Thank you, Page and Tribune, for printing the truth.

Only in the confounded war on drugs could a title so antithetical to
freedom like "czar" creep into the lexicon of what was once the land of the
free. This despotic title betrays what the drug war is really all about:
personal political power, huge budgets brimming with pork, and the
bureaucratic careerism of party hacks who know nothing of drugs but the
myopic bromides of decades ago.

Dave Michon

DRUG FACTS

Lakeland, Fla. -- I have often wondered why reporters allow our politicians
to lie and distort facts when it comes to marijuana or the war on drugs.
Thank you for pointing out a few facts in your article that John Walters
seems to miss.

Peter Ohrmund