U.S. POWER AND CONTROL AT FRIGHTENING PROPORTIONS

Aside from the fact that I regard it as much more of a persecution
than a war, I would agree largely with the comments and concerns of
Peter Schrag ["The medical-marijuana war," Commentary, Nov. 11].
Schrag rightfully questions the sanity of an expensive and intrusive
federal attack on our sick and dying - via the medical marijuana
distribution centers - ironically, at the very same time that our
nation is supposedly on a high state of terrorist alert. Shouldn't the
government be putting all of its priorities into protecting us, rather
than harming us? And what gives it the right to override state law and
protections in the process?

We have long endured a futile and very expensive "War on Drugs," which
has accomplished little other than to take away a number of our rights
and clog our prisons. Drugs meanwhile are as plentiful as ever. And
now we are being asked by the same federal government to sacrifice
even more of our freedoms in the name of its new "War on Terrorism."

I am too much of a realist to believe that the United States could
wipe out all terrorism, even if it really wanted to. But I do know
what it can do with ever more power and control - attained under the
guise of fighting (certain) terrorism or (certain) drugs - and I am
very frightened.

Gordon Wilson,
Laguna Niguel