Letter to the Editor

Why is marijuana still illegal?

After reading the New York Times article "Rx: Marijuana" in the Boulder
Daily Camera (8/3/97), I only have one question. Why is marijuana still
illegal? The government has been trying to convince people for 60 years
that marijuana turns people into motherraping childmurdering
addledbrained desperate dope fiends.

If marijuana is so dangerous, where are all the dead bodies? Even aspirin
makers can provide some death statistics due to use of their product.
After 10,000 years of constant testing, marijuana has caused ZERO deaths
from overdose.

As reported in the New York Times article, the voters of California are
trying to implement medical marijuana distribution, but have faced strong
opposition from the federal government. Similarly, industrial hemp
(nonmedical marijuana) legislation has been killed in Colorado three years
in a row due mainly to threats from the federal government. So I suppose
only the federal government can tell us why marijuana is still illegal.

Maybe it is to support the multibillion dollar per year police state used
to fight the "War on Drugs"? Maybe it is to spend $30,000 per year of our
tax dollars to incarcerate people to fuel the prison industry? Or maybe it
is to increase the profits of pharmaceutical industries that cannot patent
a safe and effective plant.

Or is it to further increase the already obscenely bloated profits of the
petroleum industry by denying natural, renewable alternatives for fiber,
fuel, and medicine?

Hemp and medical marijuana advocates in Boulder have organized Hempstock
'97 to address some of these issues. The festival will take place on
Saturday, August 16, 1997 from 12 noon to 7 p.m. at the Bandshell in
downtown Boulder. This August marks the 60th anniversary of marijuana
prohibition in the U.S. It's time to lighten up! For more information,
call (303) 7845632.

Capp Sehota
"Out of Patience Alliance"
Nederland, CO