MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IS A WASTE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESOURCES

Michael Hiltzik criticizes the methods used to estimate California's
marijuana crop, but he never gives the value of or even mentions
California's biggest legal crop. This leaves readers in the dark. How
are we expected to make a comparison? We are still left wondering if
pot is, in fact, the biggest cash crop.

There are not "reasonable arguments on both sides" of the debate of
whether to legalize marijuana. There is nothing reasonable about
prohibition; it squanders finite resources, creates drug cartels and
overcrowds prisons. And in an allegedly free country, there is nothing
reasonable about having to ask the government's permission to use a
substance that -- at worst -- only hurts oneself.

Anthony Maenza

Oceanside