Attorney General Dan Lungren makes fun of Dennis Peron running for governor
as a Republican, saying Peron "has smoked more marijuana than even I
thought."

The truth is Lungren is abandoning Republican principles with his threat to
close once again the cannabis buyers clubs. Marijuana is a product. Peron
and the buyers clubs are meeting a market demand. Lungren is using the power
of the state to prevent an industry from developing and to keep California
capitalists from developing a product that is in high demand.

What kind of a Republican would do that?

Peron is running against Lungren in the June Republican primary. Anyone can
cross over [party lines] to vote for him. Lungren feels threatened, and so
lashes out with invective and innuendo.

Lungren needs to take another look at the potential in the marijuana
business. The entire region of Northern California would boom if the state
allowed its residents to develop this cash crop that is in high demand all
over the world. We have the Wine Country in Napa / Sonoma. Why can't we have
the Marijuana Country in Humboldt / Mendocino?

I thought Republicans believed in capitalism.

To twist Lungren's own invective back on him: He must be drinking too much
liquor. He's not alert enough to see a thriving industry that would bring
the equivalent of a gold rush to a depressed region in his own state.

He's reacting with resentment against his own delusion that people using
medical marijuana are just "getting stoned" like hippies 20 years ago - just
the way alcoholics hold onto old resentments.

Peron is the real Republican running in the June primary for governor.
Lungren wants to call out a militia-like police force to keep sick people
from getting their medicine at Peron's club. Sounds more like a Nazi - or at
least a Communist - than a Republican.

Kay Ebeling
San Francisco