Newton - Newton voters have a chance to send a message to Senator Creem on where her constituents stand on the question of marijuana legalization. Hopefully, voters will send a resounding message that it is time to sponsor a legalization measure in the state Senate to regulate the taxation, cultivation, and sale of marijuana to adults.

More than 40 million Americans either currently smoke marijuana or have smoked it in the past. These smokers have included political leaders such as President Obama, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George Bush, Dan Quayle, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Newt Gingrich and Michael Bloomberg; prominent business figures such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Ted Turner and Richard Branson; illustrious people in the arts and entertainment such as Pablo Picasso, Steven King, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson; and world-famous astronomer Carl Sagan. Would society have been better off if these illustrious people had faced criminal penalties?

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KEVIN CULLEN, in his column "Smoking, guns" (Metro, Oct. 12) correctly states that a lot of high school kids are using marijuana and that there is violence associated with marijuana sales. He admits that legalization might end the violence, but says that that discussion is "taboo."

What?

We need a serious, non-taboo discussion of legalization for precisely the two reasons he mentions. High school students have more access to dope than to booze because dealers never check ID. With legalization, you can also have age regulations, a much more effective way of curbing teen marijuana use. Likewise, with legalization, you can sell marijuana in nonresidential businesses that can afford to hire security.

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REGARDING KEVIN Cullen's column on marijuana's decriminalization ("Smoking, guns," Metro, Oct. 12): As many others have attempted to do, Cullen has tried to connect the dots between recent crimes committed in the area and pot's decriminalization in Massachusetts. The crimes he speaks of occurred for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being the economic hard times we are all facing. If you buy into his argument that the evil weed was the culprit, then, if nothing else, had marijuana been legalized, regulated, taxed, and available, these crimes probably would not have occurred.

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REGARDING KEVIN Cullen's Oct. 12 Metro column "Smoking, guns": There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting children from drugs. Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of marijuana, and frees users from the stigma of life-shattering criminal records. What's really needed is a 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 such as cocaine and heroin. This gateway is a direct result of marijuana prohibition.

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The legalization of marijuana is a highly controversial issue that sparks passionate arguments whenever it is raised.

Thanks to the efforts of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (Mass Cann) and its fellow activists, the drug debate will once again be brought to the forefront in Massachusetts.

Mass Cann, which is the state's chapter of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML), teamed up with several college chapters of NORML and the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts (DPFMA) to petition for the placement of Public Policy Questions (PPQs) on the upcoming November election ballot in multiple districts across the state - including many Worcester districts.

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Dear Editor,

Robert Sharpe (Letter: Marijuana Prohibition Has Failed, Oct. 6, 2010), got an arrow-splitting bull's-eye exposing the failure of cannabis (marijuana) prohibition. A sane or moral reason to cage responsible adults for using the relatively safe, God-given plant cannabis doesn't exist.

Ending cannabis prohibition and extermination is one of the most important issues of our time.

Truthfully,

Stan White

Dillon, Colorado

[end]

Regarding your Aug. 25 editorial on gripes that marijuana offenders do not have to identify themselves and there is no way to force payment of fines:

As to the former, most possession charges are added to complaints alleging commission of another crime or motor vehicle violation; circumstances where the law does require people to identify themselves.

Furthermore, those who would remain silent or give a false name are very rare, as the natural response when asked by a man with a gun your name is to provide it.

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Massachusetts decriminalized the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana two years ago.

How's that working out?

Cops say they've never seen more people smoking marijuana. It's ubiquitous, not just in the inner city, but in tony suburbs, where high school kids are more worried about getting busted with -- or thrown off a team for being seen in the proximity of -- a six-pack of beer.

With business booming, the sort of violence we associate with Colombian cartels and suitcases full of cocaine is now as likely to be used against some small-timer selling grass out of his house.

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Thank you for your informative series on prescription drug abuse, which is undeniably a serious problem.

I would like to see you do an equally informative series on the flip side of the problem: people with a legitimate need for prescription medications for pain who are unable to obtain them because physicians are (understandably) reluctant to prescribe them.

The medical journals are full of articles about the mistreatment and undertreatment of chronic pain, but I'll bet you could easily find dozens of people to give you first-person stories. Even those who, like myself, have no interest whatsoever in using narcotics for chronic pain have difficulty finding a health care provider who will have a serious conversation about managing pain while juggling full-time work, home, care of elders, and all the other exigencies of daily life in the 21st century.

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Dear Editor,

Re: "Prohibition is not working," Daily Collegian 9/28

If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. White Americans did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched federal bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.

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This past week, four people were shot and killed in Mattapan. As of today, a fifth victim remains hospitalized and on life support.

With the investigation still ongoing, we know little about the circumstances surrounding the crime. It is clear, however, that this act of violence was not random.

We will never understand why a person would kill an innocent toddler - - but we should ask ourselves how it was that this child came into harm's way. According to coverage in the Boston Globe, the surviving victim told police that he came to Mattapan to buy marijuana.

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Dover -- Voters heading to the polls in Dover, Needham and parts of Medfield on election day will have a new, nonbinding ballot question to ponder: should legislation be passed that would allow the state to regulate and tax the cultivation and sale of marijuana to adults?

After the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition collected more than 200 signatures last spring, it was announced in late September that the question would appear on the ballot not as a referendum, but strictly as a voter opinion poll.

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I strongly urge voters in Falmouth and the Islands to vote in favor of regulation and legalization of marijuana on Election Day.

Addressing the comments referring to high school students, regulation will in truth make it more difficult for minors to acquire marijuana.

Currently minors can obtain marijuana more easily than they can alcohol.

That is certainly because alcohol is regulated, legal for those over 21 and not under that age. Legalization does not allow using marijuana in public, nor while driving. I completely agree with David Cooperrider. In his letter of Sept. 30 he stated, "The legalization of marijuana is the prudent thing to do."

Edith Aucoin

Bourne

[end]

QUINCY - This month, California voters will consider the biggest change in drug policy since Congress made marijuana possession a criminal offense in 1937.

Proposition 19, if passed, will not just legalize marijuana possession, it will empower municipalities to regulate and tax it. The state Legislature won't be able to stop it. Any community looking to avoid a property tax hike could open up its own cannabis revenue stream.

Marijuana would still be against federal law, which would put the Obama administration in a quandary: Should they send an army of federal agents to enforce a law state and local police won't, or turn their backs and let Californians choose their own intoxicants?

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Legalizing drugs in the U.S. could save the federal government $88 billion, according to Harvard economics lecturer Jeffrey A. Miron.

The findings, published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, show that legalizing drugs would save the federal government an estimated $41.3 billion in drug prohibition enforcement expenses.

Legalizing drugs-including marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and synthetic drugs-would also generate tax revenues of about $46.7 billion, Miron argued in the paper, which he co-wrote with Katherine Waldock, a doctoral candidate at the NYU Stern School of Business.

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BRIAN MCGRORY writes, in "We've hit a new low in depravity" (Page A1, Sept. 29), that, among "the visibly shaken mayor [and his] police commissioner" and the "grim-faced district attorney," "none of them, nor anyone else . . . is quite sure what to do to stop" drug-related violence. The most potent reason for the latest orgy of violence depicted in the Globe's excellent, chilling coverage ("A city enraged: Toddler, 3 others slain in Mattapan; officials vow arrests," Page A1, Sept. 29) is hinted at in another part of that day's paper: the financial pages, and the item "Prison operator raises its profit forecast." While people lay dying on the streets of Boston, Corrections Corporation of America reported a 7.4 percent increase in quarterly profits.

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RE "IN Mattapan, a grisly sign of a wider crime problem" (Editorial, Sept. 29): The "wider crime problem" in this country is that the drug war is over: Drugs have won. As with the nationwide ban on alcohol during the Prohibition-era 1920s, there is simply too much tax- free cash in drug distribution to ever rid us of the industry's employees, their murderous turf fights, and the innocent blood they regularly claim. It is time to place drugs along with alcohol and tobacco on the legalized and taxable list. Everyone in the drug trade, from the lords of the cartels to the street dealers, would promptly be on the unemployment line, and society could save untold billions of dollars over the first 10 years.

If our society can successfully stigmatize smoking, the same can be done for drugs. And if a few rich teens in the suburbs ruin their lives by becoming addicts, it is a form of collateral damage I am willing to risk.

Jack Kay

Framingham

[end]

I'm pleased logic is slowly making its way into the lives of others regarding the legalization of cannabis. It truly is a better idea than classifying it as an illicit drug, or decriminalizing it. Keeping cannabis illegal gives up all control and regulation of it and leaves it to "criminals" to deal with, literally.

With cannabis decriminalized, it's in an odd gray area that just doesn't work too well. Law enforcement officials don't really know what to do in lots of scenarios, and the tickets that are issued don't need to be paid, for now. Our cash-strapped state is losing out on valuable tax dollars for the sake of pseudomorality, while OxyContin and Percocet are being sold in stores. And we all can see how failed the drug war has been - longest one running.

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It was very sad to read about the recent death and devastation of our youth by the use of hard drugs ("Pills that kill," Sept. 19-21). Unfortunately, this situation was predicted at the time Massachusetts decriminalized marijuana. Doctors and other experts testified that easy access to pot would make youth more likely to try hard drugs. And heroin is so addictive that one or two experiences can result in addiction.

At the high school attended by my grandchildren, the smell of pot is strong throughout the halls. The principal says there is nothing he can do since pot possession has been decriminalized. And yet years ago, the halls and restrooms were policed by teachers to prohibit cigarette smoking. Lax pot policies in our schools should not be tolerated.

We should not legalize marijuana because a small minority of adults thinks it's fun. The tax dollars that might be generated are also not worth the result of our youth dying.

Kenneth H. Molloy

Cotuit

[end]

Falmouth Police Chief Anthony Riello is right: I never met anyone who started with heroin or crack, either ("Voters set to ponder legalized pot," Sept. 25). Most people started with alcohol.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that just behind tobacco use and poor eating and exercise habits, alcohol is the third leading cause of preventable deaths in the U.S. In 2001 approximately 75,000 people died from alcohol abuse, of whom over 40,000 died in alcohol-related car crashes.

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