COUNTY WORKING TOWARD SOLUTION

Editor:

Thanks for the clue in that federal law trumps state law. If the Civil
War wasn't lesson enough, we know for sure now.

Your letter suggests that we in California and particularly us folks
here in Tehama County are being irrational and irrelevant in our
trying to hammer out a workable solution in regards to medical
marijuana when federal law prohibits all use or possession of it. The
fact is that if we waited around to get permission from the top before
we did anything, we'd still be swearing allegiance to England right
now.

Uncle Sam's drug policies have been an abject disaster for our nation.
We have created and are empowering the foreign drug cartels that
spread tyranny and death to millions upon millions in the America's,
both in the U.S. and south of us. The illegal opium industry has
helped the Taliban in Afghanistan come to power with its tragic results.

Remember how well prohibition worked? All it accomplished was the
empowerment of organized crime before that train derailed.

You worry about our children, and rightfully so. However, the case can
easily be made that it is our system of federal law related to drugs
that is ultimately responsible for the millions of young lives
destroyed in one way or another by drugs. We in the United States
Advertisement Quantcast have created these monstrous drug cartels and
their satellite gangs and we can shut them down, too.

So, you'll just have to excuse us backward folks here in Tehama County
for not waiting for Uncle Sam to pull his misguided head out of his
anachronistic sand box. And we're not going to refocus our
conversation, as you suggest, "from the standpoint of the children."
You're merely engaging in specious argumentation there.

Marijuana serves a good medical purpose for many, who, by the way, are
just as important as children.

It is, by and large, a recreational drug and the vast majority of pot
is consumed for that purpose.

Drug abuse harms the abuser, that we know and we'll have to live with
that, like we do with alcohol.

For my part, I'm tired of the gang violence in the U.S. and the drug
cartels terrorizing entire countries.

We're going to do our part to fix this very fixable problem. It is our
hope that sooner or later, Uncle Sam realizes that he's a large part
of this mess, gets some religion and joins our conversation. And when
he does the drug cartels will tremble.

But until that time, we don't need for you to tell us what is relevant
and irrelevant for us to think, and what our priorities need to be.

Join our conversation please, but we will hear you best when you lose
your arrogant attitude.

David Roth

Red Bluff