To the Editor, Willamette Week,

It's the dog-days of summer, the doldrums and of course, time for
Willamette Week to put a pot leaf on the cover. Always an eye-catcher
that.

The story behind the leaf is a rather limited, yet sincere analysis of
ballot Measure 67, otherwise known as 'The Oregon Medical Marijuana
Act,' OMMA. The Antiprohibition League supports M67 and urges
everyone to vote yes on it.

In fact we and other groups have already registered and informed
thousands of voters not only about M67, but also about our opposition
to Measure 57 (marijuana recrim) and Measure 61 (property crimes
mandatory minimums). Our collective goal is to register 100,000
antiprohibition voters in time for this November's election. The
League's contribution to this effort, limited as it may be, is all
volunteer as usual.

Please remember this last point when M67 detractors try to tell you it
has no grass-roots support. Defeating M57 and M61, while passing M67
are important League priorities right now, yet they should be kept in
perspective to the bigger drug policy disaster. Our government - at
all levels - is waging an insane and duplicitous "war" which cost us
over $17 billion a year at the federal level alone. Yet, according to
Richard L. Harris, director of Hooper Detox which is the largest
public treatment provider in town, we don't even have enough slots in
Portland to handle 10 percent of the heroin addict population seeking
help at any given time. Some of them, as we recently saw, reach the
end of their rope... around their necks hanging from a bridge.

But most hard core addicts (a minority of all users) just go on
committing petty crimes, going in and out of jail, buying and selling
dope to an ever younger clientele. All at the expense of our
collective security and freedom today, while ensuring yet another
generation will propagate America's "drug problem" well into the next
millennium. Ironic that the only groups who benefit are the drug cops
and the drug cartels.

I suggest that is more by design than accident.

Thank you,

Floyd Ferris Landrath - Director
American Antiprohibition League
503/235-4524