Allison Bigelow's column on hemp and its many uses was informative and
obviously written by someone knowledgeable on hemp issues. It is sad that
in these times of high-tech excitement, economic issues like agricultural
hemp are overlooked entirely or demagogued to death by uninformed
prohibitionist crusaders.

Perhaps you could persuade Bigelow to do another column on prohibition.
Richard Nixon's attempt to teach pot-smoking hippies a lesson by outlawing
marijuana in 1970 have led this country badly astray. The War on Drugs,
started in 1972 by Nixon, has led directly to the largest black market in
history; larger than even the ill-fated prohibition of alcohol in the '20s.

The real gateway to hard drugs isn't marijuana. To paraphrase Bill Clinton,
"It's the Prohibition, stupid."

Arthur R. Sobey
Corpus Christi, Texas