LETTER: OFFENSIVE, CHILDISH

In response to Sheriff Thomas Bergin's comment about the domestic
terrorist who committed heartless acts in Svensen ("Animal group takes
credit for attack," The Daily Astorian, July 29): I find it offensive
and childish that the sheriff tried to give some sort of imagined
description of the character and habits of the unknown suspects, but
specifically that he assumes they must have been smoking pot.

I am very familiar with the discrimination and social stigma that goes
along with being a marijuana user, as I have been one for many years.
It is one thing to find this sort of ignorance and red-herring attacks
at the grocery store, the soccer field or on Facebook, but to see it
printed in the newspaper, quoted by an elected leader, is
disheartening to say the least. Sheriff Bergin and The Daily Astorian
should be embarrassed and ashamed for thinking that paragraph of the
story was worthy of saying or printing.

This November, Oregon voters will be given the chance to fill a void
in our medical marijuana program by establishing a much needed
dispensary system. Sheriff Bergin is adamantly against the Oregon
Medical Marijuana Program and the ballot measure. The kind of random
slandering of marijuana users that was in the article was an obvious
desperate attack made for political purposes, but done in a very
undiplomatic way.

I hope someday that our sheriff will talk about people with more
respect and not make such irrelevant unnecessary claims, that slander
other demographics, while talking about a case. Most people agree that
stealing or vandalizing any property is immoral and selfish - even us
pot-smokers.

Angela Fairless

Medical marijuana patient and advocate

Seaside