SAMPLE LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

Most of the following letters came from mapinc.org - the BEST resource for articles about the Drug War. It's colossal!

Mapinc.org - Drug War Articles

Dear Editor:
There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting children from drugs.
Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of marijuana and frees users from the stigma of life-shattering criminal records.
What's really needed is a regulated market with age controls.
Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as marijuana distribution remains in the hands of organized crime, consumers will continue to come into contact with addictive drugs like cocaine. This "gateway" is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.
Marijuana may be relatively harmless, but marijuana prohibition is deadly.
In the words of Canadian Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue." The biggest obstacle to marijuana law reform in Canada is the U.S. government. Despite clear evidence that punitive marijuana laws fail to deter use, the former land of the free and current record holder in citizens incarcerated continues to uses its superpower status to export its failed drug policies around the globe. Lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the U.S. than any European country, yet the U.S. is one of the few Western countries that uses its criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis.
The short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to the long-term effects of criminal records. Unfortunately, marijuana represents the counterculture to misguided reactionaries intent on legislating their version of morality.
Canada should follow the lead of Europe and Just Say No to the American Inquisition.

Sincerely,
Robert Sharpe,
MPA Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy,
Washington, DC
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n060/a08.html
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To the Editor,
I'm writing about Michelle Finnerty's not-so-thoughtful letter "Drugs not harmless". I know of nobody who advocates the legalization, regulation and government control of recreational drugs who claims that drugs are harmless. Many drugs are very harmful.
So why would Finnerty, or anybody else, want recreational drugs to continue to be completely unregulated, untaxed and controlled by criminal gangs?
When our great-grandfathers ended alcohol prohibition in 1933, it was not because they decided that alcohol was not so bad after all, but because of the crime and corruption that prohibition caused.

Kirk Muse,
Mesa, Ariz.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1530/a08.html
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To the Editor,
This letter concerns your article, "Drug Sales Have Contributed To The Decline Of Neighborhood," published Sept. 8. You must think we readers are all as dumb as a post.
You cite one of the negative, unintended consequences of drug prohibition -- street-level drug dealing in this case -- to persuade us that "drugs are bad," and that we should all continue to support the program that caused the problem in the first place.
The fact that you chose not to challenge the authorities on this nonsense or allow any input from those of us who oppose this law confirms that your purpose is to propagandize rather than to inform.
Drug prohibition was initiated almost a century ago to "control" blacks (marijuana), Chinese (opium) and Mexicans (marijuana).
Today, in addition to stimulating crime, which in turn leads to bloated police budgets, its purpose remains to divert attention from government failures in other areas and to provide a measure of vicarious enjoyment for the majority by persecuting a totally innocent minority.
Bill of Rights? What Bill of Rights?

Alan Randell,
Victoria, B.C Canada
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03.n1348.a03.html
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(These next two are letters I had here earlier that I just couldn't delete, partly because these guys are my friends! More LTE's after these)

Dave and I have been doing a bit of traveling for my speaking engagements...Law Enforcement Against Prohibition...the ex-drug warriors that are courageous enough to speak out against drug prohibition, which is a massively failed policy that is killing too many people and wrecking too many lives.
I rue the arrests I made for marijuana, particularly, since my own health has done nothing but improve since I met lady Cannabis four years ago...losing and keeping off 40 pounds, and so forth...now that I have spent years analyzing information on the internet, pro and con, and I have learned that we bought into a lot of propaganda and lies. Even as a cop I believed in what I was doing, but I still was 'just doing my job, maam', when I took parents out of their kid's homes and put them in jail. I pray none of them were ever raped in the system.
And I'm 'out and proud' to help make the needed change.
So...check out LEAP.CC!!!
Marti & Dave

Excerpt from The Legalization Letter by Keith Blevins
email: kb_man37@hotmail.com

Hammer, hammer, hammer them on this until we win.
Every day, start early and end late. How many years have we had to put up with being paranoid? What’s a week or two of concentrated effort compared to the potential payoff of being able to live without the constant paranoia of knowing that you’re just a freak incident away from being busted? No matter HOW careful you are it can happen in an instant. A tree crashes through your bedroom window in a storm and in the confusion your stash is displayed for all the world to see. Maybe you aren’t even home when it happens. Your life has just been upended because you had a naughty weed in a little plastic baggie in your nightstand. Aren’t you sick and tired of this? Let’s put an end to it once and for all. If we can get enough of us behind this plan there is no way we can lose.

Keith Blevens
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To the Editor,
Thanks for your sensible medical pot editorial. As a resident of Madison, Wis., where voters passed an initiative protecting medical marijuana patients in April 1977, I salute the City of Detroit for putting this important issue before voters this August.
While the best solution to the dilemma faced by the sick and dying who have found conventional medications and treatments either ineffective or intolerable would be changes in state and federal law legalizing access to medical marijuana, passing local initiatives sends a strong message that protecting patients from arrest and jail for trying to ease their suffering is not just good public policy, but the right and just thing to do.

Gary Storck,
Director of Communications, Is My Medicine Legal YET?
Madison, Wis.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n025/a06.html
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To the Editor,
Manuela Campbell (letter, Sept. 30) can be guaranteed gang-like activity will follow crystal meth into Grande Prairie. Enterprising ruffians are always quick to profit when the state enacts foolish prohibitions. Manuela needs a short lesson in the immutable laws of supply and demand. Any time a product is in high demand and black market profits are available, somebody will decide the risk is worth it.
It sounds counterintuitive, but no amount of demonization has ever saved one single kid from drugs. Making drugs the forbidden fruit in fact has consequences. It works in inverse proportion; the worse you say the side effects are the sooner some kids want to give them a try. Kids know the government has lied about marijuana for over hundred years. Why would school children or anybody else believe them now?
Perhaps, just perhaps, Manuela ought to think about the notion of responsibility. It goes hand in hand with liberty. Temptation is ever present and it is the duty of parents to teach their children how to deal with vice. Making all drugs legally available is the only way to stop amateurs from blowing up the neighborhood. When is the last time Grande Prairie residents had to worry some idiot blowing up the neighborhood with an alcohol still?
"Educating" school children to embrace your particular worldview is called indoctrination.
For instance, the notion of addiction is an indoctrinated cultural belief. There is no such thing as a supernatural force that compels people to act against their will. None of the chemicals on the periodic table have supernatural powers of allurement either. Belief in addiction is eerily similar to belief in voodoo when you look at the cold hard facts.

Chris Buors,
Winnipeg Manitoba
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PROHIBITION THE REAL PROBLEM

To the editor:

Allen Garr's story was quite well done ( "Break-in proof of need for harm reduction," Jan 28 ). I commend Mr. Garr for not using his victimization to spread the typical message-that we need to "crack down" on drugs. He's absolutely correct-harm reduction needs to be the key focus in our public policy approach to drug use.

But harm reduction alone will not get the job done. You see, we are in a bit of a paradoxical situation. We want to implement harm reduction for drug addicts, yet we have a prohibitionist approach to drugs that actually causes more harm than it prevents. The ills of prohibition are legion, and inarguable: inflated prices ( causing addicts to steal, prostitute and sell drugs to support their habits ), adulterated products ( causing adverse reactions and overdoses ), organized criminal involvement ( with associated violence and turf wars ) and, among many others, the creation of new and more dangerous drugs like crack and heroin ( both created post-prohibition ).

And the good done by prohibition? Well, it is not reduced demand. Not reduced supply. Not savings of law enforcement, judicial and prison resources. Not a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Not decreased use rates. One wonders if there exists any evidence that prohibition has done any good whatsoever. It certainly didn't prevent Mr. Garr's home from being robbed and, indeed, it just may have caused it.

Kirk Tousaw
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DRUG LEGALIZATION

Time and Money Are Wasted Now

I think drugs should be legal because of all the people that use drugs. The war on drugs takes a lot of money from the government that could be used for other purposes, such as education. Cops spend time trying to bust drug users instead of real crimes like rapes, murders and child abductions.

Since drugs are illegal, smugglers must smuggle the drugs into our country and that would cause violence. But if drugs were legal, there wouldn't be a need to smuggle drugs in and have conflict about the drugs.

Government could tax the drugs if they were legal. If companies make drugs, it will make the drugs safer because of better and cleaner equipment and supplies. There would still be an age limit if drugs were legal.

Tony Wang, eighth-grader, Pershing Middle School
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Concerning the "Traveling ONDCP drug-testing-on-students Summits" who won't allow speakers who disagree to participate:

That's the strategy of those who support continuation of current drug policy. Isolate the critics and keep them from talking to others. And using taxpayer dollars to sponsor forums where only one side of this debate is the norm. Even having ten speakers to one is not enough of an advantage for these craven, dishonest, sleazebags. When it comes to public forums paid with tax dollars, invitations are on a "liars only" basis!

--J.T. Barrie
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MISDEMEANOR

If I am convicted of a misdemeanor marijuana charge I will not be able to get a job at Wal-Mart and that is just one of many places. I know this because I applied there last week and on the application it asks the question: Have you been convicted of a marijuana offense in the past seven years? With today's climate of mistrust companies run background checks for even the most menial of jobs and lying is pointless. They will check and although they say that a conviction will not necessarily bar you from employment chances are they will pass you over again and again for someone who does not have a criminal record.

If I can't get a job then at some point I will have to get food stamps and/or other government assistance which will cost the taxpayers of Alabama money. This is unfair to the taxpayers of this or any other state. I wasn't costing them a dime before the police busted in and declared that I am a criminal. I am not a criminal. I am a wife and mother.

In Alabama the first time you are caught it is a misdemeanor but if you are ever caught again it is an automatic felony which means prison time and more money from the taxpayers to house me and feed me and provide medical care for me and so on. If I am sent to jail my children will be without one of their parents which is so wrong. We are one of the few two parent homes around these days. My husband and I have been married for 12 years. To rip away a mother from her kids all for a joint is more than TOTALLY UNAMERICAN it is downright INHUMAN. There is no justice to be found in that brand of punishment.

All of this begs the question ... How does this help anyone? It doesn't help me ( not that I need help ) and it doesn't help the average Joe whose tax dollars are going to pay for me to be incarcerated for a choice that the government has made a crime. All it does is hold people down and make them helpless and dependent on the system when they were not before.

Loretta Nall Alexander City
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And just a REAL COOL Article:

Earlier this summer, when applicants from United for Peace and Justice were denied a permit for a large protest on Central Park's Great Lawn during the convention, the Manhattan Libertarian Party swung into action. Claiming that "the only permit we need is the First Amendment," they initiated an "unauthorized protest" movement. A press release was issued, announcing that "organizers will not be available to negotiate with the NYPD, because we don't have any organizers. Absolutely nobody is in charge. Libertarians are individuals, not a collective."

The other protesters, you see, are dissenting from the official RNC line, but the LPers have taken things a step further, dissenting from the "complacent attitudes" of ordinary protesters ("If you ask the government for permission to protest it, you deserve to be told 'no'").

Having painstakingly outlined this and other guiding principles, my source wanders off humming "This land belongs to you and me" to join the LPers in a new chant: "Amendment one for everyone," they shout. "Amendment two for me and you."
There's a pause--apparently even the Manhattan Libertarians can't think of anything catchy to say about the third amendment, since no one has tried to quarter any troops in their homes recently. But they quickly recover and move on to "Amendment four, no drug war."

Holding signs suggesting that the government "Drop Taxes, Not Bombs," proclaiming "Gun Rights: The real homeland security," and yelling for "The Right to Marry, The Right to Carry" the crowd consists mostly of registered Libertarians. First among them is the Libertarian candidate for president Michael Badnarik, who declares: "Anywhere I am standing is a free-speech zone."

Many people in the small group wear black T-shirts. They bear the legend "Unauthorized Protester" on the front and "Permits? We don't need no stinking permits" on the back. Like good capitalists, the LP is hawking the shirts for $10 a pop. As Manhattan LP chair Jim Lesczynski accepts payment from a girl who later accessorizes with a skirt fashioned out of "Badnarik for president" posters, he jokes that he is "an anti-war profiteer."

Asked if his group has been hassled by the police, Lesczynski eyes the four officials from Parks Enforcement standing at a distance and says, "We've reached détente."

Détente, apparently, hasn't been achieved in other quarters. The growing crowd of Libertarians (and other protesters of a pinker stripe) has attracted the attention of a man selling sodas out of a cooler. "We've got an unauthorized vendor over here," says a parks official quietly to a small cluster of subordinates. "Get him away from the crowd. Go!" The soda salesman is already sweating from the sun, and his eyes grow wide when he sees the green and brown uniforms closing in on him.

Katherine Mangu-Ward is a reporter for The Weekly Standard.

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