Regarding Froma Harrop's Jan. 2 column "Time to end the marijuana farce": Marijuana should be legalized for medical reasons, as in some cases the substance aids in relieving pain in the terminally ill.

It should also be legalized for everyone over the age of 21, the same as for alcohol. Most people can get access to it if they want, whether it's marijuana or alcohol.

It seems the justice system really has no positive influence on repeat marijuana users through court costs, jail time or community service. If marijuana were legalized, the government could tax it and use the money to assist in substance-abuse education purposes.

Kelly Hill

Cary

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About one-fourth of the estimated cost of the new Davidson County Sheriff's Office project will be funded through confiscated drug money.

Davidson County Sheriff David Grice budgeted about $1,050,000 in forfeiture funds to acquire the site of the proposed office and pay for site preparation and construction.

While the Davidson County Board of Commissioners has yet to approve any building, Grice said he thinks the forfeiture funds have helped the project progress so far.

"It's expedited the situation because it is one-quarter of the theoretical cost of the project," Grice said.

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Seven years ago, Durham resident Chad Sanders lost his sister, Shelly, to drug overdose. Shelly had been using drugs with a friend in her dorm room when she became unresponsive. Her friend, recently released from jail on parole, did not call 911 for fear that he could be arrested for drug possession.

Shelly didn't make it through the night.

Unfortunately, Shelly's story is far too common. Drug overdose deaths have surpassed automobile deaths as the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. In North Carolina, antiquated laws and practices lead to over 1,000 preventable overdose deaths each year. It's time we do something about it.

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Colorado passed Amendment 64 Tuesday night, becoming the first state in the nation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults. The measure, which will allow adults 21 or older to use marijuana without a medical prescription, will also make it possible for the state to tax and regulate the drug and its distribution. The legal red tape remains complicated, however, as there is still a federal ban on marijuana. Washington state passed a similar measure Tuesday, allowing for small sales of marijuana, while Oregon residents rejected an amendment on the issue. The Chronicle spoke to Duke students from Colorado about their reaction to the news.

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People have been using marijuana as a natural medicine for years. In 2010, an ABC News poll showed that 81 percent of Americans believed that medical cannabis should be legal in the United States.

Seventeen states have already legalized the use of medicinal marijuana and seven more states are now pending legislation.

THC, the principle psychoactive drug found in marijuana, can also be found in the form of a prescription drug called Marinol. Oncologists recommend it to patients who are going through chemotherapy to help combat the painful side effects that accompany it, such as nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite.

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Amber Spivey tilts her head back and swigs the vial of methadone. "Oh," she moans, shaking her knees back and forth like engine pistons. Her face contorts in disgust. She chases the Kool-Aid-colored liquid with water. The taste, she says, is like a thousand pills dissolving on your tongue.

Methadone is helping Spivey, a 28-year-old freckled mother of three, reclaim her life after years of heroin addiction. She is among dozens who line up each morning at the New Hanover Metro Treatment Center, a white space of offices hidden off a highway heading downtown. Some wait inside to take their daily dose. Other patients pick up their "take-home" doses for the next days, weeks or month, a privilege earned by attending counseling and passing random drug tests.

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Libertarian vice-presidential candidate Jim Gray called the country's anti-drug policies a disaster on a trip to Salem College today.

Gray, a retired superior court judge from California, said the country's drug enforcement laws and efforts only put big profits into the pockets of major drug dealers without putting a real dent into the supply of drugs or their effects on society and the people who use them.

"We couldn't do it worse if we tried," Gray said. "Drug prohibition is the biggest failed policy in America."

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ROCK HILL Rubell Alexander has lived in Carnegie Estates -- a middle class Rock Hill subdivision just off Saluda Road -- "ever since there's been a Carnegie Estates."

Along with manicured lawns and teens playing basketball, she has witnessed several cycles of crime trickle into the neighborhood -- from rampant break-ins to the "hoodlums" she said once brought their conflicts into the area.

But none of that rattled her like finding out that two convicted drug dealers spent six months in a two-story, four-bedroom home around the corner from her house -- growing indoors what officials say was a "high-grade" type of marijuana.

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Mary Jane. Weed. Pot. Reefer. All are nicknames for marijuana.

Some people are against the drug's use, yet 17 states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes. Other states have decriminalized marijuana by allowing people to have small amounts on their private property, according to the Associated Press.

Some say marijuana is harmless. Others say it's not a drug because it's natural. So how do kids see it?

Stephen Pasierb, president of the Partnership at Drugfree.org, said marijuana's legalization and medical use has "created a perception among kids that this is no big deal."

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Technological advancements have given today's teenagers access to a lot of things their parents could hardly envision at that age: The Internet. iPads. And marijuana many times more powerful than what people smoked in the 1970s.

The rise in marijuana use among teens, as documented by recent national surveys, comes as particularly alarming to health advocates because marijuana is more potent than ever before, experts say. That means the pot youth are smoking today carries a greater risk of harm than what their parents might have experienced a generation ago.

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So the push is on again to legalize marijuana, with both a front-page article ("Bill to legalize marijuana gets local boost," Marblehead Reporter, March 15-21) and an editorial ("Messages and marijuana," Reporter, March 15-21) claiming that marijuana smoke has medical benefits. But these benefits are easily available without having people blow the smoke in my face. Unfortunately, the harm to me from having the smoke blown in my face is real.

If there are chemicals in marijuana smoke that have a medical benefit, these chemicals are either distilled from the leaves by the heat or formed during the combustion process. In either case, the chemicals can be isolated in a factory or a laboratory and administered to those who need it with subjecting the whole world to whatever side effects there may be (not the least of which is the hideous and penetrating odor).

We don't spread penicillin in an aerosol over the whole community just because a few people have strep infections.

Edward Friedman, Lehman Road

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In response to Tamara Dietrich's column, "Pat Robertson, a hero to hippies," this is the first thing he has said in many years that makes sense: Legalize pot, marijuana, whatever name you put to cannabis.

Robertson said, "I think it's just shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hard-core criminals because they had possession of a very small amount of controlled substance. The whole thing is crazy."

Let's look at the numbers. According to this column, 2.5 million are incarcerated for "soft" nonviolent drug offenses. This costs billions of dollars: $41.3 billion a year on enforcement, $25.7 billion to state and local governments. Legalizing pot alone would save $9 billion. Then, if these drugs are taxed at rates comparable to alcohol and tobacco, it would yield $46.7 billion a year, $8.7 billion from pot.

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From the outside, the one-story brick house seemed like any other in this tranquil Ogden neighborhood screened front porch, navy blue shutters, chain-link fence around the backyard.

But when local authorities raided the home last August, what they found inside was anything but ordinary: row upon row of pot plants under an elaborate display of lamps and ballasts, a ventilation system designed to shield the tell-tale aroma from neighbors and wiring harnesses replete with outlets and timers. The indoor garden was hidden in the garage, steps from the tire swing hanging in the neighbor's front yard.

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Methamphetamine busts reached a record high last year in the state because of new methods of cooking the drug and more organized efforts to access it, according to N.C.Attorney General Roy Cooper and county sheriffs.

Meth lab busts totaled 344 in 2011 - a 57 percent increase from 2006, when new state laws restricted the purchase of pseudoephedrine, meth's key ingredient.

Cooper said the laws are working because the number of large-scale meth operations is down, but busts have risen with the popularity of the simpler and cheaper "one pot," or "shake and bake" method.

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WAXHAW, N.C. - The family of a 13-year-old student kicked out of school for handing a friend a bag of oregano is considering a lawsuit if he's not immediately allowed back to school.

At the end of January, the eighth-grader at Cuthbertson Middle School handed a classmate a baggie of oregano and told him it was marijuana.

The school immediately handed down a 10-day suspension. When that suspension ended the school added an additional 45-day suspension to be served at a special alternative school.

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