Jean Marlowe started smoking pot nearly 20 years ago when a nurse told her it might relieve the chronic pain she had suffered from most of her life.

Since then, Marlowe, now director of the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network, has been fighting to make medical marijuana legal in North Carolina.

But she may not have to fight much longer.

Last week, a bill was introduced in the state General Assembly to allow patients registered with the state to possess, grow and use the drug for medicinal purposes.

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SAN FRANCISCO ­ On Monday, somewhere in New York City, 420 people will gather for High Times magazine's annual beauty pageant, a secretly located and sold-out event that its sponsor says will "turn the Big Apple into the Baked Apple and help us usher in a new era of marijuana freedom in America."

They will not be the only ones partaking: April 20 has long been an unofficial day of celebration for marijuana fans, an occasion for campus smoke-outs, concerts and cannabis festivals. But some advocates of legal marijuana say this year's "high holiday" carries extra significance as they sense increasing momentum toward acceptance of the drug, either as medicine or entertainment.

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You don't have to be a Harvard economics professor like Jeffrey Miron to know that America's war on drugs has been a lost cause for decades.

Now a bloody war between the Mexican government and vicious drug cartels is raging just across our southern border, killing thousands and threatening to spread into the U.S.A.

The Obama administration's response, typically and predictably, is to send more police and troops to try to protect and control the border. But as Miron recently pointed out in a piece for CNN.com, the cause of the violence in Mexico is our country's own misbegotten policy of drug prohibition, which drives the market for drugs underground and creates the same kind of violence, corruption and disrespect for the law among the populace that we saw during our failed war against alcohol.

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Editor:

On Thursday April 9, HB 1380 was introduced into the General Assembly in N.C. and passed its first reading. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Earl Jones, Rep, Nick Mackey and Rep. Harrison and co-sponsored by Rep. K. Alexander and Rep. Susan Fisher would allow doctors to write recommendations for medical marijuana and patients to possess it with a state issued license. This is not a partisan issue; it is a compassion issue. Many otherwise illegal substances, such as cocaine and morphine, can legally be prescribed by doctors.

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Reefer Madness, a 1937 exploitation film, warned marijuana use causes "the total inability to direct thoughts (and) the loss of all power to resist physical emotions leading finally to acts of shocking violence."

Some marijuana supporters who rightly laugh at these silly claims also say the natural presence of marijuana on God's green earth proves its harmlessness, forgetting that some of world's deadliest poisons grow naturally.

Unfortunately, when it comes to assessing the U.S.'s medical marijuana policy, the irrational arguments on both sides of the debate hamper efforts to carry out much-needed research on marijuana's medical use.

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A joke in the Reagan era was that in the "War on Poverty, poverty won." It's not hard to see who won the War on Drugs, a war that has destroyed more lives than drugs ever have. Note that in the greatest days of America, no drugs were illegal; opium and cocaine were available from Sears Roebuck.

The groundswell for marijuana legalization is so obvious that President Obama had to acknowledge it in his recent cyber town-hall event. He sloughed off the issue, observing that legalization would not "grow the economy." However, Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., have introduced legislation to rescue America's malfunctioning prison system. Some decriminalization of drugs will be part of the package.

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Regarding the column, "Let's at least begin a real talk about legalizing drugs," (AC-T, April 5): I agree with Leonard Pitts that we should legalize drugs. However, this is only the bottom third of the pyramid. The upper two-thirds calls for freeing the drug addicts from their addiction. This is a national problem and should be tackled by our government, which should buy the drugs and set up drug rehab centers. The addicts would register their addiction and be given gradually reduced amounts of their drugs until they are free of their addiction.

The drugs should be given to the addicts free of charge. Otherwise they would begin robbing people to pay for the drugs they need and fill up our jails even more.

Herman J. Muenchen, Black Mountain

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A citizens group has formed in Robeson County that wants to know why our judicial system is turning loose criminals to cause more havoc in our communities.

We are told that the Citizens of Robeson County For Justice, which has about a dozen members, isn't looking for new recruits -- but if the Orrum-based group were, they wouldn't be hard to find. Escalating crime in Robeson County -- and the inability of the judicial system to deal with it effectively -- has folks scared and angry. Just last week Fairmont officials meet with Old Field residents to come up with strategies on how to combat crime in their community.

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MARBLE - If it were a race, cocaine and methamphetamines would have been left behind by prescription medications as the biggest drug problem in Cherokee County.

"What's killing our people in Cherokee County is prescription drugs," Sheriff Keith Lovin said Thursday evening at Marble Springs Baptist Church during the second sheriff's town hall meeting.

More than 700 people in the state died from prescription drugs last year, including nine in Cherokee County, Lovin told the small turnout. "Four years ago we told the attorney general that prescription drugs are our biggest problem," he said.

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Michael McManus spoke to Elon students on Thursday about the increasing use of illegal drugs in America and the effort he has had in fighting drug wars over the past 30 years.

McManus is a former Federal Agent with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. He was one of the agents instrumental in bringing down George Jung, prominent drug lord and the man responsible for America's cocaine market. The 2001 movie "Blow" is based on Jung and his downfall.

"I have been blessed with an absolutely fantastic career," McManus said. "I drive fast boats, smuggle cocaine out of the Bahamas and drive beautiful cars. And I get paid to do it."

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In recent months, the border cities of Juarez and Tijuana, Mexico, have been under siege by the blatant violence of drug cartels fighting to control what may be the most lucrative business in the entire world.

In a press conference in March, President Obama acknowledged that the vicious cycle of dealing and smuggling drugs in virtually every city in America has been fueled by cash and guns flowing back across the Mexican border. So far, our solution to this problem has focused on tougher law enforcement, more and better fencing along the Mexican-American border, more prisons and harsher sentences for drug addicts. Unfortunately, this approach, which we've been hawking for more than thirty years, hasn't worked. There are reasons for that which lawmakers, who have the power to come up with a more effective approach, have steadfastly refused to acknowledge, let alone work toward a solution. The biggest reason is money. In this case, the old saying is poignantly true: If you want to find the root of the problem, follow the money.

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North Carolina has a strong law meant to protect people from intolerable activity in their neighborhoods, and High Point authorities put it to good use last week.

The end result was the seizure of a house on Hendrix Street known for drug-dealing, violent behavior and other activity that neighbors and police refused to put up with anymore.

Because everyone has a constitutional right to be secure in his home against unreasonable searches and seizures, state law sets out detailed conditions for determining just cause for severe action.

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To The Editor: The war on certain drugs was never meant to be won, it was meant to be continuous. It was designed specifically to reduce the civil rights and liberties of the general population, accustom them to an ongoing and ever-growing police and military presence in their daily lives, drain taxpayers' dollars and to keep lawyers rich, cops busy and jails full. In that regard, it has been a huge success.

In the future, this war will be used to justify all manner of suppression of privacy and civil rights and civil liberties. You think Soviet Russia was bad? Or Nazi Germany? Those totalitarian prison states will seem like summer camp in comparison to what is coming for North America. Cameras everywhere, ID checks and sniffer dogs on every street corner, drug testing, forced military service, your iPod and laptops being scanned, zero privacy, internment camps (most of which are already built). Everything is almost in place -- both the laws and the technology -- and all Obama needs is one "emergency" to declare martial law. A war (caused by U.S. drug policy) on its southern border should do nicely.

Russell Barth

Nepean, Ontario

Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis

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To The Editor: It is curious that Susan Lane never considers the one thing that would really solve the drug problem in Mexico - legalization. Decriminalization is a dead end street because it reduces penalties for drug users while leaving the drug business in the hands of outlaws. The decriminalization model being discussed is identical to the way alcohol prohibition worked - when Eliot Ness raided a speakeasy, the operators went to jail and the customers went home. This system enabled Al Capone and his ilk to violently control the bootleg booze market, the same way decriminalizing drugs will leave the drug cartels in control. The solution is to follow the pattern set after alcohol prohibition had proved to be a disaster - repeal and regulation. Repeal put the bootleggers out of business and we haven't had a bombing or a shoot out over a beer route since 1933.

Ralph Givens

Daly City, Calif.

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Mexican traffickers control market. Arrests, abuse are up. Mexican drug traffickers have turned Charlotte into a key distribution point for "black tar" heroin in North Carolina.

Heroin-related arrests here have jumped. And while officials have not seen an increase in drug-related violence, they worry that could change. Thousands have died in Mexico as drug cartels fight for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States - and the violence is starting to spill across the border. Other U.S. cities where cartels have toeholds have seen a rash of murders and kidnappings.

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Recently the news has been full of reports of violence in Mexico and some border states, all related to the export of illicit drugs to the United States. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted, this trade is directly related to our insatiable appetite for illicit drugs. Tom Teepen, in his March 28 column "Drug war surging," wrote of the need to move beyond the "war on drugs" strategies promoted that have been in favor for the last 30 years. Unfortunately in his list of options he completely avoids mentioning prevention. Drug use prevention programs have been seriously underfunded, receiving a small fraction of the resources devoted to the problem. Yet prevention is the most cost-effective strategy and when strongly promoted has marked effects.

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Drug-related violence is rampant in countless regions of the United States. The recent surge in such violence in Texas and Arizona has pressured President Barack Obama to become engaged in systematic and diplomatic efforts to curtail the Mexican-U.S. drug trade.

Per The New York Times, "the bloody drug war, which has caused 7,000 deaths in 16 months, has become the principal sore point between the countries." The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives maintains that 90 percent of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels originated in America. In fact, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder contemplated urging the reinstituting of the ban on the sale of assault rifles, often confiscated in drug raids. This position unequivocally would reignite a fight with the controversial National Rifle Association which traditionally misconstrues the Second Amendment as providing for an individual right to bear arms. The Times further asserts that, "an estimated 90 percent of the illegal drugs that enter the United States pass through Mexico." When drug-greedy Americans crave narcotics, the demand creates new markets and strengthens existing ones. Saying no to drugs is as ridiculous as Nancy Reagan looking toward the stars for guidance.

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If you overlooked the Parade Magazine in last Sunday's Star-News, it's worth digging through your stack of newspapers to read the piece by U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, "Why We Must Fix Our Prisons." Webb, the no-nonsense Democrat from Virginia, lists a plethora of statistics supporting his argument that our corrections system not only is terribly broken but also is a national disgrace. With 5 percent of the world's population, the United States houses 25 percent of the world's reported prisoners. Our country incarcerates its citizens at a rate nearly five times the average worldwide. About one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release - at a cost of $68 billion a year. And our prisons are essentially "breeding grounds that perpetuate and magnify the same types of behavior we purport to fear."

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Maybe we should legalize drugs.

I come neither eagerly nor easily to that maybe. Rather, I come by way of spiraling drug violence in Mexico that recently forced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to acknowledge the role America's insatiable appetite for narcotics plays in the carnage. I come by way of watching Olympian Michael Phelps do the usual public relations song and dance after being outed smoking weed and knowing the whole thing was a ritualized farce. Most of all, I come by way of personal antipathy: I don't like and have never used illegal drugs.

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Recent stories covering the violence on the Mexican border and our nation's swollen prison population inexplicably omit that our failed prohibition laws are directly responsible for both conditions. The prohibition of alcohol was repealed not because those opposed to drinking suddenly wanted a drink.

The nation recognized that the violence and crime caused by prohibition were far worse than the problems of drinking and did nothing to actually prevent people from drinking.

Taxation and regulation of alcohol are not without problems; alcohol is a dangerous drug meant for responsible adult consumption, and sometimes adults in a free society make mistakes. Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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