STATE'S RIGHTS

Re "From governor's race to pot case," Jan. 21: The arrest of 1998
gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby on marijuana charges revives the
question of California's right to self-determination as guaranteed by the
Ninth and 10th amendments.

If Attorney General Bill Lockyer follows his oath of office to enforce the
laws of California, then he will recognize that Proposition 215, the
medical marijuana initiative, is the law and that Kubby should never have
been arrested. The first move should be for Lockyer to counsel the Placer
County district attorney on California law. But the bigger question will be
if Lockyer does all Americans a favor by taking the federal Drug
Enforcement Agency to task for violating the civil rights of a California
citizen.

The federal government's insistence that federal law supersedes state law,
even in areas not specifically granted in the Constitution, deserves to be
decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gerald Klaas, Carmichael