Pubdate: Tue, 17 May 2005
Source: Press Journal  (Vero Beach, FL)
Copyright: 2005, The E.W. Scripps Co.
Contact:  http://www1.tcpalm.com/tcp/press-journal/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2977
Author: Richard Sinnott
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO SMOKE MARIJUANA?

Your June 2 pro-and-con columns about medical marijuana was a nice touch.

I think it is a sign of the times that here in the land of the free and the 
home of the brave, a person becomes a criminal if he chooses to smoke a 
plant that relieves pain and symptoms of illness. After all, we have a 
government that is exporting democracy to the other side of the globe by 
expending huge amounts of treasure and blood, but that same government does 
not allow its own citizens to smoke a common plant to relieve pain or 
illness. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction, and politicians routinely 
tell lies.

If, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a man suggested that the 
proposed federal government should have the power to tell the citizens what 
they may or may not ingest into their own bodies, that man would have been 
laughed out of the room! Yet the entire drug prohibition is based upon that 
absurd premise.

Kenric Ward's argument is nothing but a collection of old wives' tales and 
government propaganda. His is sliding down the very slippery slope of the 
position that a drug's legal status should be determined by its toxicity or 
potential harm. If his argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then a 
host of other drugs must be added to the list of contraband, including 
alcohol, tobacco, aspirin, acetaminophen. In a good debate, that is a poor 
position to be in.

Richard Sinnott, Fort Pierce
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