THE PROBLEMS WITH OUR NATIONAL PROHIBITION DRUG POLICY

Dear Editor;

California state Senator Vasconcellos has just touched the tip of the
iceberg of the problems with our national prohibition drug policy.

The dominant puritanical minority that controls the congress with coercion,
fear and the politics of personal destruction have also subverted our
federal courts. After the federal sentencing commission proposed easing
marijuana sentencing, the congress responded by refusing to approve any
more appointments to the commission. The last member, Senior U.S. Judge
Richard P. Conaboy of Scranton, Pa, left the commission last October. The
result is that the federal courts no longer have the guidance of the
commission and thus federal law and the nations' courts are effectively
subverted.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, in his 1998 Year-End
Report of the Federal Judiciary, identified the failure of the congress to
confirm new appointments to the commission as the number one problem facing
the court.

Most judges fear rendering constitutionally consistent decisions because
these vindictive members of the congress will censure them. While a censure
won't remove a judge from the court it will foreclose any upward mobility
in the system.

Hence, there is no justice in the federal courts.

This is the judicial environment that Peter McWilliams is subjected to.

If the state of California is to save the life of Mr. McWilliams it should
step in and take him into protective custody from the federal prosecutors
and provide to him the life saving marijuana that he needs to stabilize and
strengthen his body. The state should stand up to the federal persecutors
in the name of justice and protect their citizen from a federal government
gone mad.

Pat Rogers
Allentown, Pa.