END POT PROHIBITION

The News Journal editorial, "Santa Rosa earns praise for eradicating pot"
uses flawed logic to sway public opinion into believing that marijuana
prohibition is valid public policy.

Sheriff Wendell Hall making marijuana eradication a top priority is a
foolish way to waste community resources instead of fighting real crime.
Alcohol prohibition many years ago proved indisputably that reduction in
supply creates high-paying, low-skill careers on both sides of the law.

Suggesting that marijuana is against the law to grow or possess as the
reason it should remain illegal is circular logic. The fact is that legal
drugs like alcohol, nicotine and most pharmaceuticals are exponentially more
hazardous.

Paying for aerial surveillance and eradication will only increase indoor
grows, which will mean more and stronger marijuana in and from Santa Rosa.

Marijuana is relatively safe, effective and non-toxic. The benign herb has
caused zero fatalities in over 5,000 years. Compare that to the 5 million
U.S. deaths each decade from tobacco and alcohol.

It is "high" time marijuana prohibition is arrested.

JOSE MELENDEZ DeLand