PROPAGANDA POT

To The Editor:

With regards to the 9/11/03 headline article in the Ogdensburg Journal
heralding the multitude of law enforcement agents (pictures and all !) for
their fine job of discovering and burning marijuana plants with a street
value of $30 to $80 Million:

At first, I was absolutely livid that we would burn anything that was
worth $80 Million, when our State Deficit is so high, to say nothing
of the fact that the President just asked for another $86 Billion?!?
When the many faces of law enforcement perform drug busts, they
confiscate homes and vehicles and sell them.thus more money for NYS or
their County's budget. Why, then, would we burn $80 Million worth of
marijuana that could have been sold to Canada for medicinal use? That
$80 Million would be a nice little chunk of money to deduct from our
State Deficit and help counties get back some of the cuts they've
ensued, i.e. education.

Because I like to "talk politics", I have since learned that the big
hyped-up story was, according to locals, nothing more than Pray Rd
"Propaganda Pot". Accordingly, the whole crop probably wasn't worth
$800, because it is merely hemp now, and even though officials have
assured that they are going to rid the area of the unwanted crop.it
doesn't happen. What does happen, is that every year around the time
when they are trimming the budget, (like now, when the Gov. is talking
about cuts in Security) the Pray Rd Pot is once again discovered. I
guess "Propaganda Pot" is a good name for it. I guess my question
here is, whether we burned $800 or $80M worth, we ended up with zero.
Now, what did it cost the taxpayers? According to the 9/11/03
Ogdensburg Journal, the St Law Co Drug Task Force, DEA, Dept of
Environmental Conservation, Sheriff, NYS Police, local police agencies
from Massena, Potsdam and Ogdensburg, and Units from the National
Guard assisted.all paid for with our taxes.

As an herbalist, after seeing the pictures in the 9/11 Journal, I also
question why the sheriff and the other two men would pose for a
picture with smoke in it. Aren't the children suppose to believe that
the smoke is toxic?

One more question, do you think it was a coincidence that the above
drug seizure hit the newspapers on 9/11, the second anniversary of the
Terrorist Attacks?

In closing, I, myself, would like to see our law enforcement get the
drugs out of the county jail, the prisons and rehabilitation centers.
I mean we' re paying approx $40,000 per inmate/per yr, and they're
still doing drugs.

Prouder than ever to be a Libertarian.

Sheila Cipriani