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Buzz kill

To the editors:

I was saddened to note the appearance of Buzzy Linhart
in Hanna Rosin's " The Return of Pot" (February 17). In the
late '60s and early '70s, Buzzy gained recognition as a
unique and talented stylist whose vocals incorporated blues
shouting, scatting and yodeling. He recorded several albums
(three at least; I still have them). When I met him a
decade later he was barely working and clearly a pothead of
the extreme varietythough his talent remained
unmistakable. Encountering him in Rosin's piece, I wondered
if he was playing around San Francisco or if his squandered
gifts had amounted to little more than a footnote in Bette
Midler's biography. This is certainly a possibility, given
his history of chemical dependency, and it seemed confirmed
by Rosin's portrayal of him as a seedy and befuddled
character, hanging around a seedy and morally reprehensible
establishment.

Did I say morally reprehensible? Why, yes, I did, and
that gives me some hope that things are not as bad for
Buzzy as they seem (though things are clearly not good).
Rosin claims that the possibility of marijuana legalization
doesn't bother her "much," and intellectually this may be
true, but the blood of Puritans flows strong in her veins.
Rosin admits that the Cannabis Cultivators Club is on the
outer limits of the spectrum of those who fought and/or
voted for Proposition 215 (indeed, it seems doubtful that a
very high percentage of the people Rosin found there voted
at all), yet this is where she chooses to set up shop to
investigate what she finds to be a covert campaign for
complete legalizationwhich clearly does bother her. Her
claim is that she is upset by people hypocritically
masquerading as medical Samaritans while pushing their
wares, but the evidence is that she just doesn't like
people getting high, either. In fact, in Rosin's universe,
failure to floss indicates a lack of character.

I realize that charity is not a virtue in journalism,
but overt biaseven if it isn't consciouscertainly is a
vice. This essay might have started with an interview with
Bill Zimmerman rather than giving the man who managed the
Prop 215 campaign just a few lines; it might have named the
organization for which he works; it might have done the
same with Jeff Jones and his unnamed Oakland establishment.
But Rosin is after the real dirt, and she kicks up some of
the lurid stuff right away. I somehow doubt that the crowd
outside the "dim, fusty" and notorious Cannabis Cultivators
Club is demographically any further out on the bell curve
than the morning clientele of that neighborhood's nearest
liquor store, but Rosin points out the filthy indigents,
the lame, the maimed and a racially and sexually abominable
excrescence ("a gaggle of mulatto transvestites").

Rosin and "The Return of Pot" miss the point completely.
Counterculture caterpillars like Dennis Peron and New Age
capitalists like Russ Ceres may be despicable hypocrites,
and the damage done to some people's lives by marijuana (or
any other substance, including alcohol) is tragic, but an
unregulated black market, an expensive and ineffective
policing effort and a cluttered legal system will not stop
the tragedy, nor make Peron and Ceres more upright
citizens. Hypocrisy is not a crime. If it were, most of our
laws would have to be stricken from the books. And people
drawn to chemical dependency get there regardless of
current statutes or the legally available menu of
substances. For better or worse, Buzzy's life is what he
made it, and it is surely less miserable in his own eyes
than it is in Rosin's. For the present, controlled
distribution remains the only sane answer. Not everyone who
voted for Prop 215 was high at the time.

S. E. Sciortino

Corinth, Vermont

To the editors:

Hanna Rosin suggests that "legitimation through
medicalization" of opiates, cocaine and other drugs late
last century led to a high rate of addiction: " one in
every 200 Americans was a drug addict." But prohibition
has done no better. Experts today estimate that over 3
million people in our country are addicted to heroin and
cocaine, which is more than one in every 100 Americans. If
you include other drugs and medicaments, the proportion
grows. Nearly a century of prohibition has certainly not
lessened American substance use and may in fact have
exacerbated its harms.

Phillip O. Coffin

New York, New York To the editors:

As a cancer survivor, I read with great interest your
examination of California's implementation of medical
marijuana. It's very upsetting that those pushing the
legalization of this addictive drug have blatantly played
upon the compassion of the public by using our pain and
anguish to provide them a foot in the door to mainstream
their dubious drug habits.

The use of marijuana to alleviate the side effects of
chemotherapy is downright quackery. Today's medications can
better control the side effects of cancer treatment than
ever before. Proven medical treatment and prayer, not cheap
highs, have gotten individuals like myself on the path to
remission.

If compassionate legislators want to truly help those in
pain, then they should focus their efforts on reducing the
bureaucratic red tape that prevents drug companies from
getting newer drugs into the hands of patients on a timely
basis and at a reasonable price.

Your article confirms the worst suspicions of drug abuse
experts and law enforcement officials that the California
initiative would only trigger abuse and spawn a new
thriving drug trade. Cancer patients like myself resent
being used as convenient cover for pot smokers to light up.
Their "compassion" arguments make me more sick than I was.

Paul McCarthy

Lynnfield, Massachusetts