FED ABUSE

To the editor:

On Monday, the Drug Enforcement Administration, in conjunction with the U.S.
attorney in Pittsburgh, charged 55 people with trafficking in illegal drug
paraphernalia. Attorney General John Ashcroft gets his authority to make
such an arrest from one source -- apathy.

Sometime within the past 85 years, tyrants in high places abolished what was
a government of the people, by the people and for the people. In its place,
they established a government above the people.

The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants.

The French revolutionary, Bertrand Barere de Vieuzac, spoke those words in
1792. It is time to ask John Ashcroft to step outside and bloody his nose
with a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people." That statement is not just a great idea. Nor is it simply a
legal opinion. It is the law. It is the highest law we have. It is the 10th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Eighty-five years ago, the federal government had to ask the American people
for the power to enforce a prohibition against alcohol because it recognized
its lack of authority to eliminate the personal liberty of its citizens to
intoxicate themselves. But the federal government has never asked the
American people for the power to enforce a prohibition against marijuana.

The federal government has usurped the power of the people and the states by
creating the Drug Enforcement Agency. And now the unconstitutional war on
drugs has gone so far as to criminalize the possession of a pipe. The pipe
is contraband because Mr. Ashcroft has determined that, "No one would
possibly use these items for smoking tobacco."

I am not an advocate of pot smoking. I would sooner split a pair of 10s at a
blackjack table than smoke a joint. Yet I want my right to make either
foolish decision contingent upon the laws that Nevadans see fit to enact and
not upon the tyranny of those who weaken the Constitution with their
ambition.

It is how fervently we protect the rights of our least popular and most
repugnant that we demonstrate our desire for liberty. It is time to reign in
the federal government and make it clear to Congress, and every government
agency, that the Constitution is not a guideline, it's the law. Either we
stand ready to water the tree of liberty or we take responsibility for
letting it die.

MARTY HAUGLAND

HENDERSON