LA CANNABIS CLUB RAID

Robbery

To the editor:

Thank you for covering the raid on the L.A.
Cannabis Resource Club ("Cannabis club raided by DEA," Nov 3). It
seems as if American media is avoiding the incident, perhaps realizing
how horrible it is that our own federal government would be spending
its time and resources robbing cancer patients of their medicine.

We keep reading articles about how law enforcement are overloaded and
undermanned trying to keep up with all of the terrorist threats and
anthrax reports; but somehow, the federal government managed to
allocate 30 agents to travel to Los Angeles to raid a legal (under
California law) medical marijuana provider. I wish I had the strength
to be outraged.

But instead I am just sad. Right now more than ever we should be
showing compassion and respect for these people and their prescribed
medicine.

Instead, the DEA has robbed them of it without warning.

Adam Wiggins, Pasadena

Reefer Madness

To the editor:

I think it's shameful that the Drug
Enforcement Administration has taken advantage of the media's focus on
anthrax and Afghanistan to raid medical marijuana clubs in California.
Congress needs to show leadership on medical marijuana, which roughly
70 percent of Americans support.

Marijuana prohibition itself should be subjected to a thorough
cost-benefit analysis.

Unfortunately, a review of marijuana legislation would open up a
Pandora's box most politicians would just as soon avoid. America's
marijuana laws are based on culture and xenophobia, not science.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican
immigration during the early 1900s. White Americans did not even begin
to smoke marijuana until a soon-to-be entrenched government
bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda. Dire warnings
that marijuana inspires homicidal rages and insanity have been
counterproductive at best. According to a Pew Research poll, roughly
38 percent of Americans have now smoked pot. The reefer madness myths
have long been discredited, forcing the drug war gravy train to spend
millions of tax dollars on politicized research, trying to find harm
in a relatively harmless plant.

Meanwhile, research that might demonstrate the medical efficacy of
marijuana is consistently blocked. The direct experience of millions
of Americans contradicts the sensationalistic myths used to justify
marijuana prohibition. Illegal drug use is the only public health
issue wherein key stakeholders are not only ignored, but actively
persecuted and incarcerated. In terms of the raid on the Los Angeles
Cannabis Resource Center, those stakeholders happen to be cancer and
AIDS patients.

Robert Sharpe, Washington, D.C.

Blowing Smoke

To the editor:

Re: "Cannabis club raided by DEA," Oct. 31.
After World War II, the SS elite tried to say that they were only following
orders.
During that time and now, you'll see that the leaders gave the orders and the
robots simply obeyed.

Obviously, then and now, the leaders didn't have to watch their dirty work.
It's
very easy to sign an order and not be there.
These leaders should have a front seat to their policies: made to watch
people in
wheelchairs, or people puking out their guts or people suffering in pain.

Michael K. Gailb, New York City

A More Deadly Powder

To the editor:

"Cannabis club raided by DEA"
clearly demonstrates why our nation is in the mess it's in. In light
of America's latest war and catastrophe, maybe a closer examination of
our past, current and future policies, both foreign and domestic, is
long overdue. Can we afford the luxury of an excessive, deadly and
disastrous civil war, like the War on Drugs, which devours fully 50
percent of all our law enforcement resources, while terrorists,
wishing Americans the gravest of harm, live, move and train right here
among us? Are our national priorities skewed?

Ask any postal worker if the white powder leaking from an envelope on
their sorting table turns out to be cocaine, instead of some truly
lethal biological agent, would they feel relieved?

In their situation, how would you feel? Thank God it's only cocaine.
While Americans have chased each other for decades, dedicating
phenomenal amounts of our national assets, searching for all manner of
illegal plants, pills, powders and the like, our real enemies have
literally invaded us. We all continue to pay the price for our
government's drug war blunder and that's the real national tragedy.

Mike Plylar, Kremmling, Colo.

Taking A Hit

To the editor:

Cannabis has no lethal dose and its
pharmacological effects have never caused a single death in more than
5,000 years of recorded history. The (unseen) driving force against
medical (or unrestricted adult) legalization of cannabis is the fact
that cannabis can't be patented.

This precludes the need for big business to be involved and that fact
makes cannabis commercially unattractive to the pharmaceutical,
tobacco and alcohol industries (lobbies). It seems that if it can't be
profitized successfully, the government can't justify legalization
even for the sick and dying. Furthermore, the war on cannabis drives
the war on drugs.

Without cannabis prohibition, the drug war would be reduced to a
pillow fight.

This is the politics and the economics of cannabis prohibition. Maybe
the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party
line of cannabis prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the
prison and military industrial complexes, the drug testing industry,
the "drug treatment" industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the
politicians themselves, et al, can't live without the budget
justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery,
corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them. The
drug war also promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement
policies and is diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are
supposed to be inalienable according to the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights.

Myron Von Hollingsworth, Fort Worth, Texas

High And Dry

To the editor:

Thanks for covering the federal raid of
the West Hollywood medical marijuana clinic. I distinctly remember
George W. Bush stating (during the presidential campaign) that medical
marijuana is a state's rights issue. But now he has the authority to
prevent these atrocities, and we hear nothing from the White House.
This nation has been betrayed by the current administration and drug
warriors in general.

Remember that the next time you vote.

Danny Terwey, Santa Cruz