I'VE BEEN following your recent letters from readers like Mark
Chenier, Lynn Harichy and others with some interest. I'm glad to read
you believe marijuana should be legalized for medicinal use. I believe
Kirk Nechamkin deserves an answer to his question, "Why not 'literally
decriminalize' it?" to which you replied the reasons were too numerous
to list.

There certainly must be one or two important reasons you would have
had the space to list. After all, isn't it important to inform your
readers of these reasons? I have always been genuinely curious as to
why marijuana is illegal. I've never heard or read any reasons which
are not blatantly spurious, circular or intellectually dishonest or
which are not contradicted by logic or my own experience. Any cursory
research into the origins of laws against marijuana reveal only the
racist and puritanical hysteria of a bygone era.

Larry Stevens

(Dope is for dopes, Larry.)