MARIJUANA LAWS IN THE VARIOUS STATES

Re: "America's complex pot compromise," Sept. 18 news story.

Your article, while giving voice to the many sides of the cannabis
debate, still misses the mark.

The great pot debate is not a debate at all. Without consideration of
the corrupt foundation of pot's prohibition, there will be no
conclusion to this perpetual game of tug-of-war. When the history
lesson of pot's illegal status is learned, there is no conclusion to
reach other than that penalizing personal use and/or cultivation is
absurd.

Were it not for the bigoted fabrications and perjured testimony before
Congress by the late career prohibition bureaucrat Harry Anslinger,
our farmers would still be growing hemp, and "mar-ee-huana" would be
an obscure intoxicant favored by jazz musicians.

Allan Erickson, Eugene, Ore.

The writer works for the Drug Policy Forum of Oregon.