[Regarding the "Hurray for the pot police" letter, which ran in the
March 26 issue of Xpress,] it is important to note that most
drug-war-mongering politicians and civilians fall into two categories:

1. Those who actually believe the propaganda, lies and ignorant myths
peddled by the prohibitionists who refuse to consider any
reform-oriented alternatives to the current massive failure and fraud
of the drug war; and

2. Those prohibitionists, referred to above, who rely on the continued
prosecution of but never a victory in the drug war, in order to
sustain the industries, jobs and constituents' votes that keep them in
business and in power. The hottest fires in hell will be reserved for
these people, who employ fear, lies and oppression in an attempt to
continue but, again, never to win the war on drugs.

Cannabis has no lethal dose, and its pharmacological effects have
never caused a single death, in over 5,000 years of recorded history.

The (unseen) driving force against medical (or unrestricted adult)
legalization of cannabis is the fact that cannabis can't be patented.
This precludes the need for big business to be involved, and that fact
makes cannabis commercially unattractive, pharmaceutically speaking.
It seems that if it can't be profitized successfully, the government
can't justify legalization even for the sick and dying.

Unfortunately, a change in current policy (prohibition) would
necessitate that the alternative (legalization) reap more profits
(seen and unseen) than our present policy does.

Maybe the politicians are required to adhere to the party line of
prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison/industrial
complex, the drug-testing industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the
DEA, the politicians themselves, et al., can't live without the budget
justification not to mention the invisible profits, bribery,
corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them. The
drug war also promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement
policies, and is diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are
supposed to be inalienable, according to the Constitution and Bill of
Rights.

Myron Von Hollingsworth,
Fort Worth, Texas

Editor's note: Stop! It was satire a sarcastic diatribe against the
war on drugs.

Seldom does a letter provoke such inflamed and misunderstood
responses as did "Hurrah for the pot police."

And because the letter, published in our April 26 issue, was run on
our Web site, it elicited reactions not only from local readers, but
from Internet users in other states and Canada.