WHAT ARE THEY THINKING IN CLOVIS?

The U.S. federal drug policies supported by Clovis Mayor Pro-Tem Robert
Moreno and other like-minded politicians are fueling the largest contraband
black market in history, filling our now private-profit prisons with
non-violent drug users, including numerous sick and dying citizens;
corrupting and degrading our democracy, police and judicial systems;
involving our banks in a lucrative money-laundering business; and enriching
U.S.-backed narco-dictatorships by filling our communities with
artificially profitable, black market drugs.

An added bonus for the people of New Mexico is that cannabis hemp, the
world's most useful, beneficial source of medicine, food, clean fuels,
tree-free building materials, environmentally safe paper, plastics, and
yes, recreational and spiritual products, is banned.

This they support, while most of Europe and Australia are legalizing the
growing and personal use of marijuana.

Lee Eisenstein
Watsonville, Calif.

WAY TO GO, GOV!

"Negative national publicity"? You've gotta be kidding.

From here, New Mexico's governor is the nation's most progressive and
courageous, daring the enmity of people for a greater cause. That cause is
a fair national debate over the wisdom and efficacy of drug prohibition and
the war being waged in its defense.

Those who criticize the governor - like you - have a responsibility to
explain how perpetuating the drug war is going to achieve victory. Good
luck. New Mexicans deserve to be proud of their governor. I only wish Teddy
Kennedy understood what Gov. Johnson understands.

Richard M. Evans
Northampton, Mass.

DRUG WAR A FRAUD FOR A LONG TIME

New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is doing the only thing an honest man can do:
He's telling the truth. How refreshing to hear a public servant doing what
he is paid to do - serve the citizens in his state. It would be nice to see
law enforcement following his lead instead of bashing him for his honest
opinions.

The police are supposed to be public servants, but somehow they've lost
their way and become enemies of a large segment of the population in their
attempts to protect their favorite cash cow, the drug war.

It seems unreasonable that the police would conduct a war against their
employers in this once free country, but the war must continue, forever,
due to the anti-drug cartels' continuing need for funds.

You would provide your readers with a much needed service if you actually
did a report concerning how the United States got into this mess. It wasn't
begun by Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, but was begun more than 60 years
ago by Harry Anslinger as an attack against racial minorities and in an
attempt to create jobs for his ex-alcohol prohibition bureaucrats. It has
continued to this day for the very same reasons.

Old Harry used statements such as, "Marijuana makes black men rape white
women" and other ludicrous propaganda to begin this war, and the
bureaucrats who want its continuance use many of the same tactics today,
veiled as a need to protect Americans from themselves.

If you doubt this, the information can easily be found in the congressional
records from 1937, when our legislators passed the Marijuana Tax Act. The
war on drugs has been a fraud since its inception.

Mike Plylar
Kremmling, Colo.

DRUG WAR A TURF WAR

In your Oct. 20 editorial, "Law enforcement 'drug' into Johnson mess," you
state that Gov. Gary Johnson's advocacy of an alternative approach "makes a
mockery of the nation's drug laws" and "has damaged his relationship with
the state's law enforcement community."

Dozens of law enforcement officials have spoken out against the nation's
failed drug program. Several federal judges have criticized the war on
drugs and have refused to hear drug cases because of the unconscionable
mandatory minimums and the clear racial bias of the drug laws.

In 1996, hundreds of prestigious scholars and political leaders signed a
public letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan saying that the war on
drugs is now causing more harm than the drugs themselves and demanding an
end to the present destructive policies.

Why, then, are some police in New Mexico, plus some DEA and Customs Service
people, whose jobs depend on the drug war, telling us that a little open
discussion and a variety of views on this critical social situation is
demoralizing them?

Could it be that the drug war cannot stand up to a rational, open discourse?

Is it that opponents of the policy must be squelched with calls to
motherhood and apple pie because the war fever is irrational and bankrupt
of justification?

Or is it just that the cops' jobs depend on the present policy and they
must stop any discussion that might threaten their turf by any means
necessary?

Jim Rosenfield
Culver City, Calif.

DRUG ARGUMENT MISREPRESENTS FACTS

Your Oct. 20 editorial about New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson illustrates the
real problem with our drug policy - the lies told by those who support it.

For the record, Johnson never said that smoking pot or using any other drug
was OK or "cool." In fact, he described them as a "bad choice."

Your editorial was nothing less than dishonest.

Clifford A. Schaffer
Director
DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy
www.druglibrary.org
Canyon Country, Calif.

DRUG LAWS NEED REFORM

Regarding your editorial arguing that New Mexico's governor is making a
mess of law enforcement, clearly you do not understand the problem.

Bad laws need to be changed, even when these laws require enforcement. It
is a state chief executive's duty to advise the voters about the negative
effect of bad laws.

Some police support drug laws (not all thankfully) because it gives them
power and authority and assures them lifetime employment.

Drug use will not go away. Let's accept that, reform the laws to protect
those who are too young to know better, and spend resources enforcing laws
that protect society from predators, criminals who steal for a living.

Gerald M. Sutliff
Emeryville, Calif.