DRUG WARRIORS MAKE POT FARMERS VERY HAPPY

Thanks to Randell G. Shelden for his outstanding Local View [July
15]:

"Ineffective, Expensive Drug War Rages On."

However, I disagree with his statement: "Too bad marijuana growers
don't have a lobby to give money to politicians like the tobacco and
liquor industries do." Actually, they have something better. They have
so-called "drug warriors" who arrest and jail a small percentage of
the growers and sellers.

While a few growers and sellers are arrested, the others celebrate.

Without the so-called "drug warriors," marijuana would be worth what
other easy-to-grow weeds are worth--very little.

Without our drug prohibition policies, marijuana would have very
little value. It would sell for what other easy-to-grow vegetables
sell for.

Potato growers and corn growers would love to sell their products by
the ounce or fraction of an ounce instead of by the bushel or by the
ton.

And the marijuana growers' profits are completely tax free. It seems
to me that non-users of marijuana would be in favor of taxing a
product they don't use. Only legal products can be taxed.

Kirk Muse,

Mesa, Ariz.