Barney Frank did what he does best Monday afternoon: He talked courageously about an issue that makes most politicians crawl under the table.

Frank, at a late afternoon talk at Gallery X in downtown New Bedford, was absent the usual accompaniment of local mayors and legislative delegation members.

The same folks who fall over each other to piggy-back on Frank's usual SouthCoast appearances were gone this time. Because Barney Frank was in New Bedford to talk about the need for the United States of America to end the hypocrisy of marijuana being illegal.

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AMHERST - One local professor's attempt to obtain federal permission to grow marijuana for research into its potential medical benefits has been rejected by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The DEA has previously said that permitting anyone other than the government to grow marijuana would lead to greater illegal use of the drug.

Lyle Craker, a UMass professor of plant, soil and insect sciences in Amherst, has been trying to obtain a license since 2001 to further potentially life-saving research.

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RE "MARIJUANA genome: Fighting cancer, dude" (Editorial, Aug. 20): Rarely mentioned in the debate over the legal status of this plant, valued since the dawn of agriculture for its nutritious seeds, durable fiber, medicinal qualities, and, yes, its ability to alter consciousness, are the constitutional limits on the power of the state.

The federal and state prohibition of cannabis exceeds those limits. Such unconstitutional laws do not bind in conscience, though they may be obeyed out of fear.

It is humane, not cynical, to seek to free those who would use it as medicine from the dangers of the black market on our way to constitutionally reasonable regulation of the cultivation and commerce in cannabis.

Steven S. Epstein

Georgetown

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The announcement that a small Marblehead company has isolated the genome of the marijuana plant brought the predictable snickers, but the research seems to hold legitimate medical promise. The company, Medicinal Genomics, published the hundreds of millions of letters of DNA that make up Cannabis sativa in hopes of spurring research into the plant's cancer-fighting potential.

Medical marijuana is legal in 16 states - not including Massachusetts - - but there is still much to be learned about its possible therapeutic uses. Unfortunately, though, the debate seems to bring out the worst in everyone. Foes of drug laws have latched on to marijuana's medical uses, cynically exploiting them as a way to bring about de facto legalization. By the same token, drug warriors have too often simply dismissed out of hand the possibility that the much-vilified weed might actually be good for you sometimes.

Strip away all the drug-war combat, though, and Cannabis sativa is just a plant. Its health benefits - or dangers - deserve ordinary scientific inquiry unclouded by politics. Here's hoping that Medicinal Genomics can break the mold.

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Some major issues are debated on Beacon Hill for years but never resolved. Other issues can't get a serious hearing in a state Legislature that seems incapable of dealing with more than a handful of major topics each session.

For those who care about these unaddressed issues, there's an alternative, albeit a difficult one: going directly to the voters through a ballot question. A number of interest groups have taken the first step toward getting their issues on the statewide ballot in 2012. Among the issues:

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Group Petitions to Get Binding Referendum on Ballot For Legalization

Voters in several area communities strongly endorsed non-binding resolutions last fall supporting the legalization of medical uses of marijuana.

Next year, they might get a chance to vote for real.

A group calling itself Massachusetts Patients Advocacy Alliance has petitioned to get a binding referendum on the ballot legalizing medical marijuana.

Whitney Taylor, a spokeswoman for the group, said the votes in places like Attleboro and North Attleboro last year reaffirmed the strong support for medical marijuana that shows up in public opinion polls.

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The folks who brought you out-in-the-open pot-smoking are back! And this time they want you to approve the use of medical marijuana to treat all manner of disease.

There is legislation pending on Beacon Hill that would legalize the use of medical marijuana. But if the Legislature doesn't act before next spring, the State House News Service reports that some supporters plan to pursue a ballot campaign.

Recall that voters in Massachusetts approved a ballot question in 2008 that decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, sold on sob stories of desperate people who couldn't find work or kids who couldn't get into college because of a criminal record of drug possession. A civil citation would free those beleaguered souls from their regrettable choices, the argument went.

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The Global Commission on Drug Policy recently declared that the global war on illicit drugs has "failed." The panel, led by former U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan, British entrepreneur Richard Branson and former heads of state representing Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, concluded that anti-drug policies have not stemmed the tide of narcotics, as global opiate use has increased 35 percent over the past decade while worldwide cocaine use has risen by 27 percent.

This wholesale indictment of long-standing drug policy by respected world leaders was certainly astonishing. While the commission's call for decriminalization of drug possession will create widespread controversy, the focus should remain on the commission's call for a new model of addiction care.

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To the editor:

I'm writing about Albert "Max" Abramson's outstanding letter: "The insane war on drugs" (July 11).

The so-called war on drugs is a huge industry and huge bureaucracy. Victory in the drug war is not possible, nor is it the goal. Victory in the drug war would mean that the drug war industry and bureaucracy are out of business.

There are basically two types of people who support the so-called war on drugs: Those who make their livelihood from it. This includes politicians and bureaucrats who are probably on the payroll of the drug cartels. (Al Capone had hundreds of politicians and prohibition officials on his payroll.)

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To the editor:

"Should a SWAT team break down your door at 3 o'clock in the morning and shove a shotgun in your face while they tear your home apart and put your family's life in danger, looking for evidence that you might be hurting yourself?" In 10 years of asking this question, I have yet to hear an affirmative response. For over four decades, an insane war on drugs has been waged -- not on cocaine, heroin or marijuana -- but on the people of this nation. Inner cities have been turned into war zones, young men have been imprisoned and gang-raped by AIDS-infected inmates and respect for the rule of law has been all but completely destroyed in the eyes of the young.

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A growing number of suburban young people are falling prey to deadly drug addictions, but most emerge from the same cultural environment with lives intact. Why?

Is the answer in genetics, environment, psychology, or a potent mix of these? Or is it sometimes a matter of chance - an adolescent's decision to try a pill with addictive properties infinitely more powerful than a jigger of whiskey from the family liquor cabinet?

There is no simple answer, says Dr. Kevin Hill, psychiatrist-in-charge at the alcohol and drug abuse treatment program at McLean Hospital, the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a global resource on substance abuse.

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One in a series of occasional articles about opiate abuse and its consequences.

There is a young man living at a homeless shelter in Quincy, age 21, sandy-haired with a face full of freckles, an earnest manner, and a heroin addiction.

He loves his parents, hates rules, and can explain with sweet-voiced precision why, despite costly efforts, his family in Scituate cannot save him.

"My parents did everything right, they did, to the best of their abilities. I know I've stressed them out. It's a weight on me. But you want to know how to stop a kid on a crazy heroin run?''

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U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Newton whose district includes Taunton, has partnered with a Republican congressman from Texas to introduce legislation that would make marijuana criminalization the business of state governments.

Frank and Libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul introduced HR 2306 on Thursday in Washington, D.C. The bill doesn't necessarily legalize marijuana but takes it off a list of federally controlled substances and lets states decide how to regulate it.

The bill would also eliminate federally provided marijuana-specific penalties in the Controlled Substances Act.

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Georgetown - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

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Prosecution and Jail No Longer Seen As Effective Deterrents

QUINCY - On a blackboard in the drug unit's office at Quincy police headquarters, detectives have scribbled a grid of license plate numbers, vehicle types and names. These are the people the unit is building cases against for dealing drugs, mostly heroin and OxyContin.

Their stated goal is to make it as difficult as possible for these people to deal in Quincy. Eradicating them altogether is beyond what the eight-person team can be expected to achieve on its own, unit head Lt. Patrick Glynn said.

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DEATH CERTIFICATES SAY HEROIN, OXYCODONE AND OTHER DRUGS KILLED 46 MEN AND 53 WOMEN IN QUINCY, WEYMOUTH AND BRAINTREE IN TWO YEARS

QUINCY - They're about about evenly split between men and women. More than 80 percent are over 30; the median age is 41. About a quarter of the men work trade union jobs or in construction. The women are likely to be homemakers, secretaries or workers in the medical field.

They are the 99 people who died of drug overdoses in the past two years in Quincy, Braintree and Weymouth, largely from opiates like heroin and oxycodone, the pricey prescription painkiller most cited as the gateway drug to heroin.

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Regarding the editorial "Growing haze of confusion around state's pot law" published June 8: There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting children from drugs.

Decriminalization as approved by Massachusetts voters in 2008 acknowledges the social reality of marijuana and frees users from the stigma of life-shattering criminal records.

What's really needed is a legally regulated market with age controls.

Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical.

As long as organized crime controls marijuana distribution, consumers will continue to come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.

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Given the myriad ways canines have been trained to use their powerful sense of smell, it is not hard to imagine they could be taught to differentiate between a large quantity of marijuana and less than an ounce. Until that time, police may be wasting their time using drug-sniffing dogs as the basis for pot arrests, such as the one on Route 3 last month. It's the latest indication that while the state's 2008 marijuana law may have put the proper emphasis on casual pot smoking, it has created a frustrating barrier between police and their ability to pursue more serious drug crimes. In the Route 3 case, State Police smelled marijuana on the breath of the two passengers in the back seat of a taxi that had been stopped in Hingham for a broken license plate light.

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That's the conclusion of The Global Commission on Drug Policy, which just published a new report about the war on drugs:

The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.... Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption. Apparent victories in eliminating one source or trafficking organization are negated almost instantly by the emergence of other sources and traffickers.

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RAYNHAM - Approximately 200 Raynham residents voted to pass an article at the Annual Town Meeting approving a $300 fine for the public consumption of marijuana.

Raynham Police Chief James Donovan explained the thinking behind the bylaw, saying it is a "quality of life issue." Donovan said there is no significant problem with the public consumption of marijuana in Raynham for most residents, but it can come up for those who live in apartments.

"I don't think we are going to have a huge problem with this just like we don't have a huge problem with drinking in public," Donovan said. "It doesn't come up much for most of us here in Raynham because we live in single family dwellings. But for those who live in multifamily dwellings, apartments and such, it does come up for them."

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