Pubdate: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA) Copyright: 2009 Chico Community Publishing, Inc. Contact: http://newsreview.com/sacto/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540 Author: Ed Hass Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n732/a06.html LEGALIZE IT, TAX IT, PROFIT Re "The money's down the drain" and "Pampered Communist elite" (SN&R Letters, July 23): The war on drugs continues because the tobacco and alcohol industries put a lot of money into political campaigns to fight the competition for addictive drugs. What these CEOs behind Marlboro, Budweiser, etc., don't realize is [that] they've already lost that battle to keep competition for mind-altering drugs out. Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, and watch the alcohol and tobacco industries add marijuana to their product lines. Watch for the TV ad campaigns: "This bong's for you!" and the "Cannabis Camel." As for D. Yee's letter, "Pampered Communist elite," I feel sorry for this writer, swallowing the insurance lobby's disinformation campaign hook, line and sinker. First of all, [President Barack] Obama's health-care-reform package doesn't force anyone into government medical insurance. If you have an insurance plan you like and a doctor you like, guess what? You get to keep it! If you have no insurance, don't like your insurance or your doctor, or are disqualified due to a pre-existing condition, you will now have another option. Gee, what a concept: a democracy that offers you more choices rather than fewer choices! As to "Communist elite" having better insurance than the rest of us: D'oh! Congress already has better health-insurance plans than the rest of us, and this was put in place nearly 40 years ago under the most rabid anti-Communist conservative Republican administration in U.S. history: Richard Nixon's! Remember Whittaker Chambers' Pumpkin Papers, the Watergate burglars who declared that their profession as "anti-Communists," etc. Yeah, that crowd of "Communists" decided elected officials deserve better health care than everyone else. Ed Hass Elk Grove - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr