POLITICIANS ANSWER TO DRUG LORDS OF ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO

To the Editor:

Thank you for breaking the story by your investigative reporter, Cara
DeGette, on the cannabis plant that was found at the Governor's mansion.

The lame denials by the Colorado State Patrol that "it's probably just some
kind of weed" are ludicrous and don't even approach plausible deniability.
The governor will not have his mansion and property seized by the state, as
would happen to a regular person in such circumstances.

Important to remember is the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the governor and
most other politicians in Colorado who have surrendered to the drug lords.
No, not the drug lords who grow a medicinal plant that heals sick people
and kills no one, but the drug lords who make deadly hard drugs,
mood-altering, physically addicting drugs that kill thousands of Coloradans
each year.

These drug pushers are the manufacturers of the two most deadly and
dangerous of all drugs, the tobacco and alcohol drugs. Joel Hefley takes
tobacco and alcohol drug money, as does Tom Tancredo. So does Bill Owens.

They (and most other politicians) tell us how bad "drugs" are and how we
must put people in jail who grow or use cannabis. But cannabis does not
kill anyone as tobacco and alcohol do. As a pharmacist, I find it amazing
that many people are unaware that tobacco and alcohol are drugs, even
though tobacco meets the definition of a schedule I controlled substance
(like heroin) and alcohol meets the definition of a schedule II (like cocaine).

Most people also do not know that tobacco and alcohol are exempt by name
from the Colorado Food and Drug Act (25-5-402(4) C.R.S.) and are also
inexplicably omitted from the so-called Uniform Controlled Substances Act
of 1992 (18-18-203 & 204 C.R.S) list of schedule I and II controlled
substances.

I have been unable to get any Colorado politician to explain to me why
these deadly drugs are exempt from our state drug laws, or why any other
drug less harmful than tobacco or alcohol should not also be exempt from
these drug laws for the same reason(s) that tobacco and alcohol are exempt.

Perhaps the Colorado Springs Independent can succeed where I have failed by
getting Owens, Hefley, Tancredo, etc. to explain why it is OK for them to
take drug money from tobacco and alcohol drug pushers, but not from
cannabis growers, why it is OK for the two most deadly drugs, tobacco and
alcohol (over 400,000 drug deaths and over 80,000 drug deaths respectively
each year in the United States), to be exempt from the drug laws, but it is
not OK for the medicinal herb cannabis (0 drug deaths ever) to be exempt
from these same laws.

When you ask the politicians to answer these questions, also ask them if
the government has any studies to show any purported scientific or medical
uses for these two hard drugs, or if they are simply recreational drugs.

Thanks again for the enlightening article.

- -- Tom Barrus, American Federation for Legal Consistency Golden, CO