Letters

POT PROHIBITION HAS GONE TOO FAR

I'd like to express my thanks to the Journal staff for providing such fair
and prominent coverage of Gary Reams' campaign for lieutenant governor
("Libertarian Candidate Targets Drug Laws," Aug. 13). This campaign has
attracted much media attention and has succeeded in generating public
discussion, as shown by the Aug. 28 letter to the editor from Bart Frazier
of Centreville, "Libertarian message gets lost." Mr. Frazier eloquently
laid out the Libertarian philosophy of individual choice and personal
responsibility and presented a reasonable argument against having any
candidate run a single-issue campaign.

But he got it wrong when he said that Reams "proposes to legalize marijuana."

In fact, Reams simply wants to begin a public debate about many issues
concerning cannabis, a family of plants that were, after all, completely
legal and agriculturally important in Virginia until 1937. Reams does not
claim to know what the answers are, but he does point out the many serious
problems in our society that are a direct result of this costly, failed
policy of prohibition.

I agree with Mr. Reams that marijuana prohibition has gone too far. It has
gone too far when Richmond's chief of police is concerned about the erosion
of our Fourth Amendment's protections because of marijuana enforcement.

It has gone too far when DaimlerChrysler Corp. has to import hemp from
Canada because the legal production of a Sebring convertible involves raw
materials that cannot be produced legally in the United States. It has gone
too far when Virginia doctors write prescriptions for medical marijuana to
help cancer patients, only to have Washington politicians "just say no." It
has gone too far when the home state of Thomas Jefferson trades in its
heritage of civil liberties for a "moral crusade" against its own people.
The Reams campaign is not about Gary Reams, or about Libertarian
philosophy. He has unselfishly set aside those concerns to provide an
opportunity for Virginians who want their leaders to finally discuss the
merits of industrial hemp, the rights of doctors to prescribe a natural
medicine to the seriously ill, and the preference of having recreational
marijuana sold in ABC stores to adults, rather than being sold in every
public high school by the young recruits of organized crime.

Because of the hysteria over the drug war, which lumps marijuana with more
dangerous drugs, few people are willing to publicly debate, not to mention
criticize, the government's prohibition of these plants. Thanks to Gary
Reams, we will be able to express our concerns in the privacy of the voting
booth, while sending a very public message to our representatives in Richmond.

Robert McBride
Chairman, Libertarian Party of Prince William County