Marijuana has been in the headlines a lot lately.

Partly, that is because it is now being sold legally for medical use and recreational use in Washington and Colorado.

In recent meetings, there have been indications Louisiana lawmakers might once again revisit the possibility of easing the penalties faced by those caught with marijuana in this state.

That would certainly be a good start, but lawmakers really should take the issue much further. Louisiana should be the next state to legalize it. No matter from what angle one looks at the issue, that makes the most sense.

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I'm writing about the not-so-thoughtful letter from Quentin Johnson, Jr. titled "Marijuana logic faulty" on Jan. 25.

The cannabis legalization issue is not whether or not cannabis is completely safe for everybody, including children, it is not. But rather freedom of choice for adults.

Children have died from eating peanuts but we don't cage peanut growers, sellers or consumers.

And the voters of Colorado and Washington state have decided that we should not cage cannabis growers, sellers or consumers.

I submit that all adults should have the same freedom of choice that they have in Colorado and Washington.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

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It has been well documented by many organizations, including the American Medical Association, American Cancer Society and the surgeon general of the United States that tobacco smoke is harmful to your health. It contributes to more than 400,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and about $90 billion a year in medical costs.

It is a major contributor to lung diseases, cancer, coronary artery disease as well as other health issues. And, according to the American Theoretic Society, marijuana contains most of the same chemicals as tobacco and therefore just as harmful.

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One room in the state Capitol was buzzing Tuesday and could've led to an old-fashioned stoning, and maybe it did for some. The Louisiana House Criminal Justice Committee held a public meeting to discuss a study requested by state Rep. Dalton Honore regarding the feasibility and effectiveness of legalizing marijuana possession and use. Pardon the pun, but with a large public turnout, tensions were high.

Medical professionals, law enforcement officers and Louisiana residents from college-aged to much older filled up the seats. The public was able to give prepared testimonials; most of those cases were in support of legalization.

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The recent article citing the coroner's information on the heroin epidemic is alarming, and certainly in keeping with what I am seeing in the patients I treat. I am an addictionologist and provide detoxification services for two programs in the area. The surge in heroin use has continued over the past year. Many of my patients "graduated" to heroin because the price of pain pills, such as Roxicodon (roxies) has increased to $25 to $30 each. Suboxone costs $20 per tab, or strip, on the street. If you are using 6 "roxies" a day, that's close to $60,000 a year. My patients tell me heroin is cheaper and easily acquired if you are in the drug culture. I want to emphasize Louisiana is not the only place with a heroin problem. I also treat patients from out of state and their stories are the same. My younger opioid addicted patients, who are in their 20s (and younger), frequently report using heroin.

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The Greater New Orleans Drug Demand Reduction Coalition was formed in 2011 to develop and implement a comprehensive strategic plan using prevention, treatment and law enforcement to reduce the negative consequences of the use of illicit drugs and other drugs of abuse and the abuse of alcohol in the Greater New Orleans area, with a primary focus on youth and the prevention of youth substance abuse.

In response to the Sept. 6 front-page article, "Majority favor legalizing marijuana," the GNODDRC would like to call your attention to the following:

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Bossier City resident Missy Matthews is keeping a close eye on the Arkansas medical marijuana ballot initiative.

Arkansans will decide Nov. 6 whether patients with a limited number of chronic conditions can use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. The proposal applies only to Arkansas residents. Arkansas is the first state in the South to vote on the issue.

Matthews is a member of Moms for Marijuana, a national organization that promotes education, discussion and research about marijuana's benefits. She chats online with other members who use marijuana in foods like cannabutter to help treat bipolar disorder, ADD and other mental health issues in their children.

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A state legislator told the Jindal administration that he is not ready to go the way of Washington state and Colorado by asking voters to legalize and tax marijuana.

Instead, state Sen. Dan Claitor said, he thinks the Jindal administration is missing the opportunity to generate revenue through a decades-old law that attempts to collect taxes from the drug trade through a different angle.

A law on Louisiana's books since the 1990s requires marijuana dealers to pay taxes on their product by buying stamps from the state revenue department or face seizure of their valuables if they are arrested.

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Journalist John Stossel has an article in his Fox News Blog on the so-called war on drugs. He points out that because of this federal policy, the United States has more people in prison than Russia and China do.

Stossel believes, as we did about alcohol after Prohibition, that we should decriminalize drugs. This won't end drug use, of course, but it would end this terrible policy of imprisoning drug users as well as end the killings on our borders and in Mexico. The money spent on this program should then be spent on rehabilitation, not imprisonment.

We should write our congressmen and state legislators, calling Stossel's article to their attention, and ask them to act to decriminalize drug use.

Wesley Bowers

Nashville 37215

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BATON ROUGE - If anything good comes out of the expulsion of Tyrann Mathieu as far as the LSU football team is concerned, it will be this.

Current athletes in any sport continuing to smoke marijuana or synthetic marijuana or partaking in any other drug use, better light up their brains with some smarts. If LSU is going to kick the Honey Badger - one of its greatest players in history - it will surely dismiss anyone else in a heartbeat.

Tailback Spencer Ware and cornerback Tharold Simon were both suspended for a game last season because of positive drug tests that revealed marijuana use. They could be next, and they better know that.

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BATON ROUGE - Less than a month ago, LSU released an interesting story that went largely unnoticed.

The athletic department gave $4 million of its own money - largely earned from a Microsoft-type football program - to the university to help with a budget crisis that it has has been dealing with for years through layoffs and early retirements. LSU also said it would take over the university's financial responsibilities of the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes at a cost of $1.5 million a year.

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Depression, delusions and hallucinations tied to the use of synthetic marijuana are giving a whole new meaning to the term "reefer madness," law enforcement officers and physicians said.

"You can call it what you want -- Russian roulette, roll of the dice. People just do not know what is in it," said Mark Ryan, director of the Louisiana Poison Center, "It is highly dangerous."

There have been numerous raids across Louisiana targeting the sale and manufacturing of so-called synthetic marijuana with the Terrebonne Sheriff's Office recently getting in on the action.

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Pro-marijuana legalization activists plan to gather in Shreveport and five other cities across Louisiana on Saturday to march in favor of ending prohibition.

In Shreveport, the march is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. at Clyde Fant and Cotton Street downtown.

The rallies are the brainchild of Legalize Louisiana founder Donnie Griffith, of Monroe, who believes marijuana can be used to help those suffering from medical conditions.

"We need to take the patients off the battlefield in the war on drugs," said Griffith, who stressed that patients in Louisiana deserve the same rights as those in other states.

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Legalization of illicit drugs is a touchy subject for college students.

We often bear the brunt of jokes about the topic as major media outlets usually characterize proponents of legalization as young hippies or crazy libertarians. But what happens when those yelling loudest for a new plan for drugs are your neighbors on the world stage?

The Summits of the Americas is a series of summit meetings to discuss regional issues among the nations of North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The last summit took place April 14 and 15 and was hosted in Cartagena, Colombia.

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A 27-year-old man who died after a drug stop in Houma Thursday night choked to death after trying to swallow plastic bags of suspected cocaine, marijuana and heroin, according to preliminary results from an autopsy performed Monday.

Gary Alford, an investigator with the Terrebonne Coroner's Office, said the autopsy results for Wayne Michael Williams of Houma are not yet final pending toxicology tests that take several weeks to complete.

"The primary cause is going to be asphyxiation," Alford said. "His drug levels might be very high if one of those bags broke. So that could be a contributing factor also. We're going to have to wait and see."

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Terrebonne and Lafourche public schools enroll more than 32,000 students combined, but so far this year, fewer than three dozen have been arrested for bringing drugs onto campuses.

Education officials and police readily acknowledge that more students are involved in drugs and that more can always be done to keep them out of schools.

But one reason such a relative few arrests are made is that schools -- with teachers and principals and in some cases police constantly on alert -- appeals to common sense, one officer says.

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I wish to respond to Michael Gorman's Aug. 26 column, "Rethinking this nonsense."

As the prosecutor who handled the case in question from its inception, I would begin by counseling Mr. Gorman against trying to analyze a legal proceeding without looking at all of the facts. As a prosecutor, that is what I do for a living, and I have come to learn that there is no one punishment that fits every crime nor one sentence that fits every defendant.

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The crowing tone of the press release is a pretty good indication that the Lafourche District Attorney's Office took the drug charge against Matthew Zugsberger seriously.

"A California man on a self-professed crusade to change Louisiana's marijuana laws instead pled guilty to felony drug charges Monday rather than face a jury of his peers," the release begins.

At issue was the case against Zugsberger, who was caught receiving a shipment of more than two pounds of pot.

Zugsberger argued that his prescription for use of medical marijuana should be respected in Louisiana even though it was issued in California. The local district attorney disagreed, opting instead to spend more than three years going after a man whose only crime was possessing marijuana.

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Re: "Huge news in War on Drugs," Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column July 31 in The Times.

Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drug offenses at the same rate as minorities. And racially disproportionate incarceration rates are not the only cause for alarm.

Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Incarcerating non-violent drug offenders with hardened criminals is the equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education in anti-social behavior.

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With its current focus on the dictatorships in Middle Eastern countries, the United States has largely been ignoring an issue closer to home.

Namely, the "War on Drugs" raging in Mexico.

In Mexico, the term takes on a more literal definition than in the U.S.

In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon called on military forces to handle the growing problem presented by increasingly powerful drug cartels specializing in marijuana and methamphetamine (who have grown so powerful and violent since the '90s that many have labeled them insurgencies).

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