News

Getting Ready State Officials Give a Taste of What's To Come by Releasing a Preliminary Draft of the Legal-Marijuana Plan, but Refinements Are Expected

A NSW parliamentary committee has recommended cannabis be available in leaf form to ease the suffering of the terminally ill.

Bakersfield City Council member Terry Maxwell on Wednesday called for City Attorney Ginny Gennaro to draft an ordinance banning medical marijuana shops in the city.

BECKLEY - A drug policy proposed for Raleigh County students was placed on a 30-day comment period at the monthly meeting of the Raleigh County Board of Education.

Opinions

Dear Stoner: With the recent passing of the five-nanogram driving limit for THC, I'm worried that even while sober, as a regular smoker I'll technically be over the limit. Should I sell my car and resign myself to public transportation?

Last week Colorado became the first U.S. state to adopt a set of rules that allows marijuana to be regulated like alcohol for adults. Legislators, task force members and all involved are to be congratulated for doing it in accordance with Amendment 64's spirit and under its tight, six-month deadline.

"The only justification is always in terms of the existence of innocent victims. In the case of drugs, the major effect of drug prohibition is to multiply the number of innocent victims, not to reduce it." - Milton Friedman, 1991

One of the biggest factors looming over our area is drug abuse. It threatens every community in southern West Virginia. It seems no neighborhood is immune to the ills of drugs.

Letters

I have a story that might, these days, evoke a small bubble of annoyance, a tiny percussion of pique at the callousness of public officials.

Peter Bensinger's latest letter in the Sun Times echoes the usual fear mongering that opponents to medical cannabis have been saying for years: Our kids, streets and society will suffer if we allow sick people to have legal access to a plant. He and those who share his views never talk about how other countries such as Canada and Israel have medical cannabis and kids, streets and the social fabric in those countries don't seem negatively impacted by it. They also never mention that the FDA approves pills that are often recalled and according to the Centers for Disease Control are the leading cause of overdose deaths in America. Nobody is dying from overdoses from cannabis, yet FDA-approved drugs are killing people everyday, and those drugs are found in medicine cabinets that kids have easy access to.

I'm pleased to see at last a broad opening up of the discussion of our country's failed "war on drugs." I recently attended a conference in Buffalo, titled "Leading the Way: Toward a Public Health & Safety Approach to Drug Policy in New York." Presented by the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo and the Drug Policy Alliance, it began by viewing and discussing the award-winning documentary: "The House I Live In," which chronicled the ravages to the lives of people and communities ground up by our current policies toward illicit drugs.

I was intrigued by a recent article about the Mexican drug cartels moving into the United States, but this is no surprise, because the country has decided to allow the illegal drug trade to continue. Millions of people are employed and billions of dollars spent on law enforcement, legal work and imprisonment only because we prefer prohibition rather than legalization of many drugs.

I found your editorial about the busted crack cocaine drug ring to be both intriguing and naive. It was intriguing because it touched on how the economics of the illegal drug trade "virtually guarantees" that the bust is not going to have any lasting effect on reducing the availability of the drug in the community.

Regarding the letter, "This law will cost us, not benefit us": I think the writer is a man running in fear from something he doesn't know much about. Almost every statement he made are ones that have been planted in our minds by the political realm who want to control the product to line their greedy pockets. The word marijuana or pot is used to make us think it is something terrible. The item he is talking about is really a free growing herb called Cannabis. I would only suggest to the writer that he go online and read everything about cannabis. It is even mentioned as something "good" in the Bible (see Isaiah 18 4-5).

Alabama has good reason to consider taxing and regulating marijuana. The days when our federal government can get away with confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end.