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ENDING MARIJUANA PROHIBITION LONG OVERDUE

I must respond to Auditor Dave Yost's pronouncement that decriminalization is good enough.  Marijuana laws have been used to harass and keep the civilian population in check since they were first proposed ( "Marijuana laws already lax" Sept.  2 ).

In California, marijuana prohibition started as a way to push Mexicans back across the border because, wait for it, Mexican immigrants were crossing the border and taking American jobs during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Now where have we heard that before? Blacks and other minorities were targeted also.  The first drug czar was quoted as saying that marijuana should be illegal because it makes black men think they are as good as white men.

Even as recently as a few years ago the Cincinnati City Council, at the urging of Cecil Thomas, changed the law from a fine to a fine and 30 days.  The unhidden agenda was this would allow the arresting officer to search the citizen whereas a simple ticket would not.

Decriminalization is nothing more than prohibition lite.  People will still be stopped and searched and ticketed.  People with too much marijuana will still be arrested and sent to court and jail.  We will still be wasting millions on enforcement and incarceration.

Oh, and although you could have looked it up on a government website, you quoted Rolling Stone as a questionable reference for the claim of 750,000 arrests for marijuana per year to bolster your inference that that number is somehow exaggerated or not true.  As someone who has been writing and studying this subject for years, I can assure you that as an average number for yearly arrests for marijuana, 750,000 is actually about right.

Marijuana prohibition is dying a long overdue death in America.  Let it go.  America will be a better place if we do.

Thomas Vance, Alexandria