BLANCHARD'S VIEW OF POT IS TOO HARSH

Dear Editor: Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard, in his Jan. 5
guest column, is right to assert the facts and statistics in his argument
against critics. However, I feel that his underlying moral reasons for
prosecution and incarceration for drug offenses, specifically marijuana
possession, are flawed.

He calls the sale of illegal substances a business that thrives off
people's misery and destroys lives and neighborhoods. In the case of
marijuana, or cannabis, this blanket statement does not apply.

It seems he fails to consider the fact that millions of people use cannabis
therapeutically to treat a wide variety of serious conditions. In states
like Wisconsin with no full medical marijuana laws, patients are often
forced to buy their medicine on the black market. Such patients and their
compassionate providers who understand its value as a medicinal herb do not
deserve to be locked up.

He says that incarceration is the right punishment for those who seek to
profit from the sale of potentially lethal substances. In fact, ingestion
of marijuana has been directly responsible for zero deaths throughout
recorded history, and no one has ever overdosed on it. I'm reminded of the
phrase "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."

Today's war on drugs is responsible for tearing apart families because they
choose a natural medicine. Fathers and mothers are imprisoned, and children
and homes are taken simply for a plant that has proved false all of the
propaganda to criminalize it. Mostly, what is destructive to the lives of
individuals and their families are the laws.

James McCamy

Madison