CANNABIS TRUTHS

Len Schropfer's letter to the editor (LJS, Dec. 26) was factual about
the state process to legalize hemp/cannabis/marijuana (Proposition
19). It touched on hemp uses, including as biofuel.

Susie Dugan's response (LJS, Dec. 29) made 14 nonfactual assertions
about pot. Cannabis can be abused, but causes a decrease of
aggression, not an increase, as alcohol does.

After significant time scrutinizing this plant's potentials and
shortcomings, 16 states and the District of Columbia -- one-third of
the U.S. population -- have approved medicinal cannabis by
legislature or voter action. Legalizing, regulating, producing and
taxing this plant makes sense.

Our youths aren't the problem. Prohibition is. Surveys in California
at the time of passage of the 1996 medicinal approval law and eight
years later found ninth-graders' use of cannabis/marijuana had
decreased from 34.2 percent to 18.8 percent -- in spite of street
pot's availability. Shouldn't PRIDE (Prevention Resource and
Information on Drug Education) be for that?

Industrial hemp would be a huge boon to the Nebraska economy. The
United States is the largest importer of hemp.

Opposition letters on this subject often incite rather than educate.

Wayne Whitmarsh,

Lincoln