LETTERS

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