LEGALIZE MARIJUANA, DE-FANG THE DRUG GANGS

The recent guest opinion article "Medical Marijuana: Opening
Pandora's box?" (Jan. 20) by Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini stated
that if we were to allow the compassionate use of medicinal
marijuana, we would be opening a Pandora's box and set forth its
monsters upon society. What about the monsters that are already
amongst us: the drug gangs that already make many of our urban streets unsafe?

Worldwide, we have narco-terrorist gangs rampaging out of control. We
need look no further than at the atrocities committed daily in Mexico
to see the measure of misery caused by failed law-enforcement efforts.
Admittedly the U.S. DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) can interdict a
fraction of the drugs smuggled into the U.S. This kind of failure rate
would not be tolerated anywhere else but in the government community.
Ob viously, law enforcement and the risk of incarceration are no
deterrent at all. Even the risk of death or maiming does not seem to
stem the flow of young men and women willing to risk all for the
billions to be made in the illicit drug industry.

The only solution would be to take the tools that empower the gangs
out of their hands. No money, and they will not be able to finance
their terror armies. Put ting aside the moral argument about drugs,
this is the only sensible solution. After all, alcohol and tobacco are
drugs, too, and they are cash cows for our government.

The politicians who profit mightily and the law-enforcement
communities would howl at the loss. After all, corrections and its
related periphery are big business for those holding the strings of
control. The world community as a whole would prefer to see vanquished
the monsters already amongst. So, why worry about a potential
Pandora's box if we allow those who are suffering to smoke pot when
the beasts are not contained within the box but already set free and
feeding on us?

Legalize marijuana. Control it and regulate it. Reap the profits both
financially and socially worldwide.

Richard T. Kuncewitch, Trenton