NEW POLICY A STEP IN RIGHT DIRECTION

Mahalo to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for his new policy on
medical marijuana. For years, I have thought it was a waste of
taxpayers' money to put people in prison for marijuana.

The authoritative LaGuardia report, published in 1944 by the New York
Academy of Medicine, concludes that marijuana is not addictive in the
medical sense of the word, is relatively harmless, and largely
demonized in the media. In the mid-1980s, reports circulated that
marijuana would cause birth defects. I think this is largely false
because we have not experienced a large increase in the number of
birth defects, even though civil disobedience of marijuana laws is
quite common.

The marijuana black market is huge -- probably around $50 billion per
year in this country. I think we should legalize marijuana and tax it
like we do liquor.

Phil Robertson

Kailua