Society's rights come first

Tom Hawkins (Letters, Aug. 6) is still, I see, harping about legalizing
pot. He and his ilk are still justifying marijuana use, and drug abuse in
general, on the basis that alcohol is also a drug and legal.

If marijuana is proved to have redeeming medicinal value, the Food and Drug
Administration should classify it in its drug schedules and allow
physicians to prescribe it. Allow bona fide drug companies to manufacture
and distribute it in the same way morphine and morphine derivatives are.
But, regulate it in the same manner, with penalities and taxes, not with
socalled clubs doling it out in exchange for "prescriptions" scribbled on
napkins or bar doilies, the way it's being done in San Francisco.

Legalizing drugs will not remove crime from the drug culture. Juveniles (I
am assuming the permissable age of use would be 21 years) will still have
to steal or rob to get their fix money, once their habit gets big enough.
Of course, there are no parents stupid enough to give their kids drugs. Right?

What happens when the abuser no longer can contribute to society due to his
drug dependancy? Where does he get the means to procure drugs to satiate
his need? Who supports him or her when they reach that state of
druginduced dysfunction? The first two guesses don't count, on either
question.

Legalizing drugs does not mitigate their addictive nature. Society at
large, whose rights drug abusers routinely violate, must be considered
first and foremost, ahead of the individual's right to abuse drugs.

Brehon K. McFarland
Colville, WA