Editor,

Concerning your front page story on 2/3/97 "Ban on gay 'marriages' hot
issue at Capitol". When will legislators and lawmakers learn that they
cannot legislate morality. A ban on (prohibition of) gay marriages will not
work. Prohibition of anything, whether ideas or substances, has not, and
will never work in the U.S. Prohibition in the U.S. only hurts the very
people that the legislation attempts to protect.

Alcohol prohibition didn't work in this country in the 20's because black
marketeers didn't then and don't now ask for ID, they only ask for money,
and lots of it.

Abortion prohibition didn't work because women still got
abortions. Intelligent, well trained, licensed, and professionally
supported Doctors helped get abortions legalized. The chances for
surviving an abortion rose dramatically for women seeking abortion.
Maybe someone finally realized that if we couldn't trust them with
a "choice" how could we trust them with a child?

Marijuana prohibition is not working, in fact it hasn't worked
for 25 years. Each new weapon that the 'drug warriors' bring out
has become either ineffective or detrimental to their crusade. The
very generation of young intelligent citizens that have been
bombarded with DARE and DATE programs are increasingly using
tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. When a young citizen experiments
with marijuana and realizes for themselves that it is not the
"reefer madness" of administrative rhetoric they realize that they
have been lied to about it and begin to wonder "what else are the
drug warriors misrepresenting", "cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy,
heroin, opium, pickles."

Black marketeers (drug dealers) don't ask for ID nor do they
care one whit about who is using the drugs they sell, they only ask
for money, and lots of it. We can stop or slow down the violent
drug trade by taking the money out of the illicit black market.
The answer seems clear: take marijuana out of the black
market and put it in the hands of professionals like doctors,
scientists, growers, pharmacists, state liquor stores. Removing
marijuana from the realm of prohibited substances will, in all
probability, decrease its use by children, the very section of the
population that marijuana prohibition tries to protect.

Many doctors, scientists, sociologists, psychologists,
humanitarians, and yes even law enforcement have recently declared
that, in their professional opinion, marijuana should be
decriminalized or legalized, and handled just like alcohol and tobacco.

Scott Mills