MONEY IS NO REASON TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

It appears that some who decried the supposed lack of "science-based"
policy from the Bush administration seem to have forgotten their own verbiage.

California's marijuana industry is thriving ["California finds pot is
a huge cash cow," page one, July 19], and it now appears pot can cure
allergies, insomnia, throat inflammation and sugar cravings.

It's a miracle drug! Does it cure impotence too? Oops. Not from what
those pesky scientists have said.

Where's the science to support any of this? If marijuana cures
allergies, that would be front-page news. Insomnia? Get real. The
truth is that people use the science argument only when the views of
one party disagree with their own. In the words of one man who gets
his weed with a doctor's note, this whole policy is a joke that just
legalizes what people already wanted. Medicine has nothing to do with it.

And never mind the environmental degradation, the used-up farmland
and wasted water, the thriving and murderous criminal cartels that
won't pay taxes anyway and the populations sedated into apathy and complacence.

The reason for all this? It's also green, but you can't smoke it,
though you can burn through it pretty fast.

Governments are pressured to sign on to this for one reason: money.
And when money is the primary motivation for making wholesale changes
to criminal and social policies, I think that ought to be a major
cause for concern.

Dan Magill, Seattle