NO 'GRAY AREA' ON POT

On Sept. 6, FBI and DEA agents, performing their jobs, raided the medicinal
marijuana farm on upper Swanton Road, surrounded by disbelieving friends
and neighbors of the establishment. Now there is this shocked and surprised
outcry from the locals.

The only thing I'm surprised about is why it took these federal agencies so
long to finally get to this farm. I'm also rather puzzled why our local
district attorney and sheriff and their staffs did nothing in all the time
this farm was in operation. Could it have been fear of political
incorrectness that caused them to ignore federal laws? There is no "gray
area" under federal law as regards to marijuana, medicinal or otherwise.

One letter writer to the Sentinel even went to the unrealistic extreme of
deluding himself into believing that the state of California is actually a
"republic." This writer would do well to study history and learn that
"republicanizing" the states was the real reason the Civil War was waged by
the Confederacy, not the right to keep slaves, as modern textbooks and Ken
Burns' documentary would have current generations believe.

Any first-semester student of law will inform you of a basic fact: local
ordinances cannot be enacted contrary to state law, and state laws can
never be enacted contrary to federal law, even by the mandate of the
electorate or their elected representatives.

To decriminalize or legalize any substance which is currently illegal,
proponents of such change must act on a national level, unless too lazy to
do so. Learn from the history of how the alcoholic beverage prohibition act
was finally overturned by President Roosevelt in 1933.

PETER CHELEMEDOS, BEN LOMOND