SentLTE-Digest Saturday, September 6 2014 Volume 14 : Number 044
001 LTE: Re: 'Richardson: Cooperation needed to make Salt River, East Valle
From: Kirk Muse <>
002 LTE: ...opponents scrape the bottom of the barrel
From: John Chase <>
003 LTE: I cannot tell you how frustrating it is
From: John Chase <>
004 LTE: Amendment 2 dialog has devolved into personalities.
From: John Chase <>
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Subj: 001 LTE: Re: 'Richardson: Cooperation needed to make Salt River, East Valley safe from gangs'
From: Kirk Muse <>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 13:27:09 -0700
To the Editor of The East Valley Tribune:
I'm writing about Bill Richardson's thoughtful guest column:
"Richardson: Cooperation needed to make Salt River, East Valley safe
from gangs" (9-2-14).
It seems Richardson failed to mention the primary reason street gangs
exist: illegal drugs.
From 1920 to 1933, alcohol and gangs went hand-in-hand. Back then,
alcohol was completely unregulated, untaxed and controlled and
distributed by criminal gangs — just like meth, cocaine and other
recreational drugs are today.
If all drugs were legally available in local pharmacies for pennies per
dose, would criminals gangs be involved with them? No. Would drug users
be constantly seeking new drug users to sell drugs to pay for their
habit? No.
If we re-legalized all our illegal drugs so that they could be sold by
licensed and regulated businesses for pennies per dose, would this
eliminate our drug problems? No. Will we ever be able to eliminate our
drug problems? No. However, doing so would substantially reduce the
crime rate and increase public safety.
Regulated and controlled drugs would be of known purity, known potency
and known quality, which would make them very much safer than today’s
black-market drugs.
But what message would we send to children if we re-legalized all
illegal drugs so they could be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed
business establishments?
The same message we send to children today when we allow products such
as alcohol and tobacco to be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed
business establishments.
A free country’s government cannot protect its adult citizens from
themselves. A free country’s government has no right to attempt to do so.
Kirk Muse
1741 S. Clearview Ave.
Mesa, Ariz. 85209
(480) 396-3399
Thank you for considering this letter for publication.
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Subj: 002 LTE: ...opponents scrape the bottom of the barrel
From: John Chase <>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 05:03:37 -0700
Sent online to the Tampa Trib
Trib readers knew Amendment 2 was winning even before they opened
yesterday's paper and found the front page article about the video taken
of John Morgan at the post-debate celebration with "a microphone in one
hand and and a drink in the other" using language suitable to that
occasion. Then Trib readers found the letter reporting Amsterdam has a
"lost generation" of young people, that their IQ had dropped 10-15
points due to marijuana, and they were dropping out of high school. I
have been following the Dutch cannabis situation for 16 years and I know
that neither statistic about Amsterdam is true.
Meanwhile, millions of Floridians who benefit from medical marijuana,
and their families, continue to risk arrest as opponents scrape the
bottom of the barrel to find something -- anything -- to stop it.
Amendment 2 needs 60% to pass, so it's not a done deal yet, but if
voters come out to vote, it will. Then perhaps we will have a rational
conversation about regulation.
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Subj: 003 LTE: I cannot tell you how frustrating it is
From: John Chase <>
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2014 03:01:09 -0700
Sent online to the Tampa Trib a few minutes ago.
I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have no personal experience
to refute the man-in-the-street "statistics" about the effect that
Amsterdam's legal pot shops have had on young people there. (Ref:
"Smoking, Pain And Pot", Sept 2nd).
What I do have is peer-reviewed research papers about states in the U.S.
that have lived with medical marijuana laws (MMLs) long enough to draw
conclusions. Every such paper concludes that, as compared to non-MML
states, (1) violent crime is down, (2) property crime is down, (3)
opiate overdose deaths are down, and (4) adolescents do not use more
pot. The only inconclusive report comes from professors of criminology
at the University of Texas. Their paper agrees with the A/P report in
the Trib's Sept 2nd issue, "Experts Divided On Whether Pot Legalization
Poses Driving Hazard". Those experts suggested that pot and alcohol
might not mix well together.
At the bottom line, Amendment2 passage would pose no danger at all to
kids, health or public safety if we could apply to pot smoking the same
public education model proved effective in reducing cigarette smoking.
Then the families of millions of bona fide, pot-using patients would no
longer need to fear arrest.
John Chase
Palm Harbor
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Subj: 004 LTE: Amendment 2 dialog has devolved into personalities.
From: John Chase <>
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 12:21:09 -0700
Editors, Orlando Sentinel -
It was bound to happen; Amendment 2 dialog has devolved into
personalities. On one hand, "John Morgan" is a legalizer with a loose
tongue, and the sheriffs benefit from prohibition. What are facts?
Very few patients or caregivers will go public for fear of arrest, so it
is hard to know the upside with certainty. But the downside we do know,
and it is OK.
About a dozen states have lived with medical marijuana laws(MMLs) long
enough to know, and most of their MMLs are more liberal than
Amendment2. Those dozen states, compared to the other 38, have seen
reductions in opiate overdose deaths, violent crime, property crime and
traffic fatalities, all with no increase in adolescent use of pot. It is
documented in peer-reviewed research done by economists, criminologists
and emergency medicine doctors at universities in Montana, Texas, Rhode
Island, Maine, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California, and
published by the Journal of Adolescent Health, the University of Chicago
law school, the Public Library of Science and the American Medical
Association.
It shows that the bad things predicted by opponents of Amendment2 don't
happen, except the jury is still out on traffic safety. It is known from
research in France that a drunk driver is more dangerous than a stoned
driver. What is not known is how the two drugs work together in a
driver. Soon it will be known, and then the Florida Department of Health
can set the regulations accordingly, without help from Morgan or the
sheriffs, please.
John G.Chase
727 787 3085
1620 E Dorchester Dr
Palm Harbor, FL 34684
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End of SentLTE-Digest V14 #44
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