LEGAL HEMP STEALS FREEDOM

I have noticed that the emphasis on legalizing hemp seems to be put on
personal freedom. There seems to be a failure to think the problem through.
Freedom may actually, in a kind of paradox, be eroded if you legalize hemp.

If you legalize hemp the most interested parties in the new legal market
may well be the parties involved in organized crime, given the money
involved and trafficking in vice to which organized crime is attracted. We
may encounter a new, more insidious presence of the kind of men who believe
in the freedom to pander to our vices. Vice in Anchorage is a problem.
There are four so-called escort services just off Northern Lights near
Spenard. There are at least two exotic dance clubs on Old Seward Highway.
If you legalize hemp it seems that these kinds of places can only multiply,
given that organized crime panders indirectly to those who frequent these
places.

When you live in a society surrounded by people who love vice, not only is
it difficult to be good, but you may actually become less free to be good.
That means you are less free to pursue life, liberty and happiness. So
while the proponents of the legalization of hemp may have in mind the
expansion of individual freedom, the principle of the slippery slope, and
the attraction of organized crime, may in the end erode our freedom to
pursue happiness.

I urge you to consider the problem of the legalization of hemp in its wider
perspective.

Courtney Scharfe

Anchorage