POT FOES CONTINUE DISTORTING FACTS

It was interesting to see the Press make reference to the movie
"Reefer Madness" in its June 2 editorial supporting a state bill that
would allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The movie,
like the misinformation Partnership for a Drug-Free America feeds
the public, is full of lies. The religious group that financed
"Reefer Madness" simply made stuff up.

These groups say smoking pot is bad for you. It probably is. But
nobody says you have to smoke it. You can eat it.

They say it's a gateway drug. In 2006, the government arrested
829,625 people for marijuana offenses. This number has been rising
every year since the drug war started in 1914. Common sense should
tell you that by now, there should be a lot more hard-core heroin
addicts than there are if you believed the lies.

When our government started the drug war, 5 percent of the population
was addicted to hard-core drugs; 94 years later, it's still 5
percent. The only thing that's changed is 1 in 100 Americans now are
in prison. More people are in jail in America than in China, which
has four times the population.

What's the harm if medical marijuana is legalized? I've never heard
of anyone's child overdosing on marijuana, but thousands die of acute
alcohol poisoning. Police are arresting more than 800,000 people for
this drug each year. At least 10 times that number are probably
using it. If all those scary things about the dangers of marijuana
were going to happen, they would have happened by now.

The drug war is a failure. Our government has gone from going after
dealers to going after users because users don't have the money to
fight back. The government takes people's homes and sells their
property at auction for its own benefit. It makes money off this
war. Our prisons are filled with more nonviolent drug users than
violent dealers.

Talk shows tell us federal prosecutors are letting illegal-immigrant
drug smugglers go if they have less than 500 pounds of marijuana,
while we have local prosecutors sending Americans to jail for an ounce.

The do-good groups, the federal government and law enforcement should
be ashamed of the lies they tell and the things they do.

Edward H. Decker

Manchester