END OF PROHIBITION WOULD ASSIST ECONOMY

When I read the article about baggage handlers taking guns and drugs
on a flight, I was surprised.

Not that it had happened, but that someone would be smuggling
marijuana into Puerto Rico from the United States. The United States
is no longer just an importer and consumer nation, but also an
exporter nation in an uncontrolled and unregulated international
marijuana market.

The number one U.S. cash crop, marijuana, is part of an international
illicit drug market that is equal in size to the entire international
textile industry, about 8 percent of the Gross International Product.
Too bad we are not part of the legal, regulated and controlled trade
of the cannabis plant for its fiber, food and fuel. Agricultural and
drug policies can be changed. Why don't we end cannabis prohibition:
Establish controls and regulations of the existing marijuana market
and expand into the fiber, food and fuel market?

Wouldn't it benefit our agricultural industry and society?

ETHEL ROWLAND

Fort Pierce