LEGALIZE IT, TAX IT, PROFIT

Re "The money's down the drain" and "Pampered Communist elite" (SN&R
Letters, July 23):

The war on drugs continues because the tobacco and alcohol industries
put a lot of money into political campaigns to fight the competition
for addictive drugs. What these CEOs behind Marlboro, Budweiser, etc.,
don't realize is [that] they've already lost that battle to keep
competition for mind-altering drugs out.

Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, and watch the alcohol and tobacco
industries add marijuana to their product lines. Watch for the TV ad
campaigns: "This bong's for you!" and the "Cannabis Camel."

As for D. Yee's letter, "Pampered Communist elite," I feel sorry for
this writer, swallowing the insurance lobby's disinformation campaign
hook, line and sinker.

First of all, [President Barack] Obama's health-care-reform package
doesn't force anyone into government medical insurance. If you have an
insurance plan you like and a doctor you like, guess what? You get to
keep it! If you have no insurance, don't like your insurance or your
doctor, or are disqualified due to a pre-existing condition, you will
now have another option.

Gee, what a concept: a democracy that offers you more choices rather
than fewer choices!

As to "Communist elite" having better insurance than the rest of us:
D'oh! Congress already has better health-insurance plans than the rest
of us, and this was put in place nearly 40 years ago under the most
rabid anti-Communist conservative Republican administration in U.S.
history: Richard Nixon's! Remember Whittaker Chambers' Pumpkin Papers,
the Watergate burglars who declared that their profession as
"anti-Communists," etc. Yeah, that crowd of "Communists" decided
elected officials deserve better health care than everyone else.

Ed Hass

Elk Grove