No one seems to want to face up to the bad policies and laws that have created our latest immigration problems on our southern border. Starting in 1937 with the prohibition of marijuana and all other recreational drugs thereafter, America has funded all the drug cartels in Mexico and Central and South America to such an extent that they are more powerful than the governments in those countries.

These cartels have destroyed the economies in these countries and created such violence and lawlessness that the refugees from these countries are fleeing here for safety and economic opportunity. Remember that alcohol prohibition fueled organized crime in America previous to this prohibition of drugs. We didn't seem to learn from the previous mistake. Easy, feel-good legislation is not always a good thing. We created this problem!

Gilbert White, Ennis

[end]

Good governance is about good stewardship. Government executives always should consider how best to use the government's vast assets, including personnel, money and materials.

In this light, continued opposition by the Drug Enforcement Administration to the legalization of cannabis - marijuana - is not only a losing battle but a waste of taxpayer money, particularly when the president, Congress and an increasing number of state legislatures are responding to the will of the people by decriminalizing nonviolent marijuana use and possession. Our federal tax dollars would be better spent by responding to the current widespread increase of heroin use in ways that will prevent continued abuse, reduce harm to users and provide for greater public safety.

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How much longer will it take before the United States declares a truce in the Drug War?

Without federal leadership, you can count on marijuana legalization to keep spreading one state at a time.

This latter-day prohibition is taking an immense toll. And the stakes ought to be low, given that mostAmericans don't want anyone jailed for being caught with small amounts of pot.

But it does require some courage to pipe up. So thank you, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, for joining the swelling chorus that wants to see marijuana legalized.

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As a former educational professional, I've witnessed the negative social impacts and negative opportunity costs of cannabis prohibition. I observed these negative impacts while working with inner city youth; I also took note that these effects existed in my own suburban neighborhood. The world is our backyard. I began to observe how easy it was for teens to access cannabis on the illicit market and how many are left to endure life-altering criminal convictions. I examined the constant draining of tax dollars, all the while watching the expansion of violent criminal cartels.

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The measure, approved unanimously by the council, is symbolic.

The city has very little influence over whether the Legislature legalizes marijuana and it's considered unlikely to gain approval in the 2015 legislative session.

Only two speakers testified about the measure to the council, and both were in support.

In a sign of how non-controversial this issue is in left-leaning Austin, it was approved with no council discussion or debate as part of the consent agenda.

Council Members Bill Spelman and Mike Martinez, who sponsored the resolution, cited a Scripps-Howard poll that found 75 percent of Texans would support legislation allowing people with serious illnesses to use marijuana to treat themselves.

Supporters consider it an important step in the effort to legalize marijuana for medical use. Currently all forms of marijuana are illegal in Texas.

More than 20 states, including Colorado and California, have taken steps to legalize the use of marijuana for medical ailments, such as muscular dystrophy.

[end]

Re: June 9 commentary, "Pot isn't harmless; making it legal would be a disaster." I agree that legalizing cannabis would be a disaster for professional drug war cheerleader Calvina Fay because she would be unemployed. I'd like to add that the cannabis legalization issue is not whether cannabis is completely safe for everybody, including children and adolescents; it is not. The issue is freedom of choice for adults. Children have died from eating peanuts and peanut butter but we don't cage peanut growers, sellers or consumers. One in thirteen children suffer from food allergies, yet we have no foods that are outlawed. And the voters of Colorado and Washington state have decided that we should not cage cannabis growers, sellers or consumers. Texas adults have the freedom of choice of whether or not to consume legal alcohol. Shouldn't they have the same freedom of choice regarding legal cannabis?

MESA, ARIZ.

[end]

Re: June 9 commentary, "Pot isn't harmless; making it legal would be a disaster."

Calvina Fay is right about one thing. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused. Marijuana prohibition doesn't make the plant safer though. Prohibition opens up a gateway to hard drugs by granting a marijuana monopoly to drug cartels that also sell meth, cocaine and heroin. Like alcohol prohibition before it, marijuana prohibition has given rise to a youth-oriented black market. Drug cartels don't ID for age.

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A Texas teenager could face up to 99 years in prison for making and selling brownies infused with cannabis, despite the product being legal elsewhere in the United States.

Jacob Lavoro, 19, was arrested on April 14 after a neighbour smelled suspiciously pungent smoke and called the police. The authorities allege that after entering his apartment they found an illicit baking operation that included the brownies, a pound of cannabis, hash oil and US$1675 (NZ$1900) in cash.

His case is more serious because prosecutors can charge him based on the entire weight of the brownies' ingredients, which amounted to 660 grams, instead of just the weight of the oil, a substance that is more tightly controlled than ordinary cannabis buds. In Texas, possession of more than 400g of hash oil with intent to deliver can yield up to life in prison.

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If Cannabis Works, We Owe Our Veterans Access to This PTSD Treatment Option.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, plagues many veterans in this country. The depression, anxiety and flashbacks typical of this disorder can make vets' adjustment back to civilian life difficult.

Some veterans say that marijuana helps alleviate symptoms of the disorder and may pose fewer long-term health risks than present treatment options such as opioid painkillers, antidepressants and sleeping pills. Some experts agree. "Legalizing cannabis for medical use won't restore missing limbs or heal skin scarred by fire, but it can help wounded veterans live a more normal life," William Martin, director of the drug policy program at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, maintains. Yet, right now in Texas, a vet who is suffering from PTSD and who uses marijuana to self-medicate is committing a crime.

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Police Were Allowed in Apartment by Resident, Arrest Warrant Says

GEORGETOWN- The case against Jacob Lavoro, who could face a steep sentence for allegedly making and selling pot brownies, should be thrown out because police never had a warrant to search his apartment, his lawyer said Thursday as supporters rallied outside a court hearing at the Williamson County Justice Center.

Police were responding in April to a tip from a neighbor complaining about marijuana smoke coming from Lavoro's Round Rock apartment when they arrived at his door announcing they were maintenance men, said Jack Holmes, Lavoro's lawyer. Even after someone opened the apartment door, police had no evidence that there were illegal substances inside, but they entered anyway, Holmes said.

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Re: "My bad trip on edible marijuana - Colorado coming to grips with darker side of legalizing pot for the public, says Maureen Dowd," Friday Viewpoints.

Naive marijuana users like Maureen Dowd may be in for an unpleasant surprise if they choose edibles as a means of experimenting with legal marijuana in Colorado. The delayed onset effects can be overpowering. Colorado should require warning labels. First-time users should be discouraged from trying marijuana in edible form. The horror stories coming out of Colorado obscure the fact that marijuana consumption is safer under legalization.

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Arkansas AG Approves Ballot Title for Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Come November, Arkansas voters could be the first in the South to decide whether or not to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Last week, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel certified the wording of a proposed state constitutional amendment called "The Arkansas Hemp and Cannabis Amendment."

The amendment would allow the "cultivation, distribution, sale and use of the cannabis plant" and all products derive from the plant throughout the state.

The Legislature would have the authority to regulate, but not ban pot in the state. Now all supporters have to do is gather more than 78,000 signatures of registered Arkansas voters to secure the proposal a spot on the November ballot. Not an easy task. But not impossible, either. Two other ballot initiates regarding legal marijuana could end up on the ballot as well. Both would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, not recreational.

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Radical shifts in public policy are far-reaching and have everlasting effects that may not be foreseen. Marijuana legalization is an extreme measure of policy reform and a dangerous social experiment. Policies should be implemented with public health and safety in the forefront. However, marijuana legalization seems to only benefit those who stand to profit.

Following the legalization of marijuana, Colorado and Washington have seen increases in drugged driving and marijuana use. Colorado experienced an infestation of "drug tourism."

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You might find yourself racing to the eye doctor if you picked up your newspaper and read "Governor Perry and the ACLU agree."

When the discussion is about marijuana, though, you'd be wasting your co-pay. In January, at an international conference in Switzerland, Perry said he supports softening penalties for pot users. He correctly pointed out that our state has been in the forefront of the movement to implement policies that provide sentencing alternatives such as drug courts and rehabilitation programs outside the prison setting.

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Colorado coming to grips with darker side of legalizing pot for the public, says Maureen Dowd

The caramel-chocolate-flavored candy bar looked so innocent, like the Sky Bars I used to love as a child. Sitting in my hotel room in Denver, I nibbled off the end and then, when nothing happened, nibbled some more. I figured if I was reporting on the social revolution rocking Colorado in January, the giddy culmination of pot Prohibition, I should try a taste of legal, edible pot from a local shop.

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FORT WORTH - Move over, GOP convention-goers, the marijuana reformists are in Cowtown, too.

The Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is hosting the second annual Texas Regional NORML Conference this weekend in downtown Fort Worth. More than 300 people are expected to attend.

A few blocks away, thousands of Republicans are attending the state party convention at the Fort Worth Convention Center. NORML organizers decided that this weekend was the ideal time to broach the issue, saying the stage is set for reform.

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House Vote Shows States Tired of Disjointed Tack

We can't go on like this. The words are familiar to parties in many dysfunctional relationships, like the one between the federal government and states that have gone their separate ways on the failed and grotesquely expensive war on drugs.

Something has to give. The U.S. House recognized that with an unprecedented bipartisan vote last week to bar the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from raiding marijuana dispensaries in states that legalized pot for medicinal uses.

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This would be easy to overstate, but in comparison with much of the world, our country does a decent job of administering justice in a measured, equitable manner.

Sure, there's lots of room for improvement. For example, blacks are considerably more likely to be executed or incarcerated than are whites who commit the same crime. We should work on this.

Still, in a world that has at least 37 countries that outlaw homosexuality, at least 10 of which punish it with the death penalty, we do a reasonable job of administering even-handed, let-the-punishment-fit-thecrime justice. Then there's Jacob Lavoro. Last week my local newspaper, the Austin American Statesman, reported that Lavoro, a 19-year-old from Round Rock, Texas, has been charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

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Let's End Hyperbolic Warnings and Focus on Actual Threats - Like Prescription Pills.

Since its inception, the war on drugs has essentially been based on fear-mongering to children. Drugs will ruin your life! Buying drugs gives money to terrorists! One puff of a joint, a lifetime of consequences!

All these warnings have done little to reduce drug use, but they have instilled a deep sense of cynicism in far too many kids. With changes in drug laws across the country, perhaps it is time we started to tell children the truth: No one is going to die from overdosing on marijuana. Prescription painkillers are a different story.

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Marijuana Supporters Encouraged by Politicians' Comments.

Democrats want to turn Texas blue. Republicans want to keep it red. Now, members of a new advocacy group in Austin have something else in mind: They want to make Texas green.

The Washington, D.C.based nonpartisan organization isn't blowing smoke about environmental causes. Rather, the Marijuana Policy Project sees an opening to loosen marijuana laws in Texas, following recent comments by Gov. Rick Perry and other state politicians.

Heather Fazio, the newly installed Texas political director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said she, a lobbyist and several volunteers will work toward passing state laws that would permit the use of medical marijuana, decriminalization of the controlled substance and eventually allowing adults to possess small amounts of marijuana. Similar efforts will be made in several other states.

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