Re "Anniston man finds one state's medicine is another's illicit drug" (News article, Aug. 18):

To charge and imprison a card-carrying medical patient to 2-10 years for marijuana possession is beyond making sense for a country where the federal government grows it and sends it to patients via federal mail, where the Department of Veterans Affairs allows vets in medical states to use cannabis, and where the government receives millions a year in taxes from over-the-counter sales.

If Michael Lapihuska is sentenced to time behind bars for one gram, this country truly has gone far downhill. I'm so ashamed of my government. Truly.

David Parker

Huntsville

[end]

This year the Department of Veteran Affairs has formally announced that patients being treated at VA facilities will be allowed to use medical marijuana if they live in one of the 14 states where it is legal.

Under prior department rules, veterans treated in a VA hospital or clinic could be denied pain medications if they were found to be using marijuana. The new policy states that patients participating in state medical marijuana programs must not be denied VA services or pain medications.

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Dear Editor,

In the next session of the Alabama legislature, the legal use of medical marijuana will once again come before the house and senate for their consideration.

The Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act (MPCCA) would make it legal, with a doctor's recommendation, to possess and consume marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The time has passed for us to deny patients the medicine that they need simply because marijuana has been demonized through U.S. government propaganda. Study after study has shown that marijuana is not the evil substance that we have been led to believe, and study after study has shown that marijuana has more medical uses than nearly any other substance on earth.

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Alcohol prohibition lasted 13 years and was one of the most violent periods in our history. We have made the same mistake again.

Marijuana and cocaine are now used by more than used alcohol during Prohibition and the money is financing wars in America and in Mexico.

I believe the church should do everything possible to stop drug use, but making marijuana not legal makes a way for more evil than if its use were legal. Let's make marijuana legal. Then give a death sentence for selling the rest.

Grady Hooper

Eclectic

[end]

Re "Un-American to harass the sick" (Speak Out, Aug. 30):

I have been an analyst of drug policy for 15 years, and it has become obvious that it is inevitable that marijuana will become legal as the new generation displaces the older people like myself. Among people under 50 a solid majority is forming. The only question is when.

Various conflicts over marijuana are regularly in the news across the country. Letter writer Loretta Nall describes one that like many is particularly cruel and unnecessary in relation to medical use. All this is about a drug that has been used for thousands of years and by more than 100 million U.S. citizens without more than incidental harm that will be there regardless of laws.

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Re "Anniston man finds one state's medicine is another's illicit drug" (News article, Aug. 18):

Thanks to The Star for the article on Michael Lapihuska's situation. Michael's predicament clearly demonstrates the need for Alabama to pass comprehensive medical marijuana legislation.

What happened to Michael is a complete miscarriage of justice. Since when is geographic location used to determine whether someone is a patient or a criminal? If Michael's doctor recommended marijuana for his treatment, then who are the cops/courts to decide whether he can have that treatment? Cops and judges haven't been to medical school. They are not doctors. Their solution to every problem is taser, shoot, abuse and/or imprison. Clearly, that isn't how we want to treat patients in Alabama. It isn't against the law to be sick or to try and alleviate one's own suffering.

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Re "Anniston man finds one state's medicine is another's illicit drug" (News article, Aug. 18):

Harassing the sick and dying is an un-American activity. It is overkill and morally bankrupt to arrest nonviolent people for making a safer health choice, cannabis or marijuana, compared to other medicinal/social drugs.

I am afraid murderers and other violent predators roam free while we police nonviolent adult social, medicinal and religious drug use. Regulation, science-based education and treating abuse as a medical problem is a better drug policy that increases public safety and harm reduction. Prohibition supports despicable people who sell drugs to children, recruit them to sell to their peers and arm them to kill the competition.

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Though the use of lithium strips has long been used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine across the nation, Coffee County Sheriff's Department officials say it is increasing in popularity in the county.

In recent drug raids by the Coffee County Sheriff's Department and Enterprise Police Department, officers have found manufacturers using lithium strips from batteries to speed the production of methamphetamine in a sort of one-step process. The lithium, when placed in a bottle with pseudoephedrine, ammonia-nitrate and/or other chemicals, makes a fiery and gaseous reaction that quickly makes methamphetamine.

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Amen, Ronald Crumpton. When will Alabamians step outside the box and pass legislation such as the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act?

The side effects of traditional medicine's drugs are killing suffering people every day. It is truly time to stop the pain and let people have the option to choose an herbal remedy such as marijuana to ease their agony.

Alice Cole

Montgomery

[end]

Re "Anniston man finds one state's medicine is another's illicit drug" (News article, Aug. 18):

It is inhumane to not allow a person access to medicine he needs and has been prescribed by his doctor. Marijuana is one of the safest-known herbs with the most beneficial effects known to man, and this statement has been proved time and time again through extensive research and studies conducted by well-respected scientists and doctors.

What right does anyone have, no matter their position in local, state or federal government, to incarcerate someone for medicating himself the best way his doctor sees fit?

[continues 54 words]

In April, the Michael Phillips Compassionate care act passed both the House Judiciary and Rules committees before Alabama's archaic Legislature's session ended. The Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act would legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes in Alabama.

It is past time for Alabama to adopt medical marijuana legislation because the simple fact is that marijuana is not the evil substance that the United States government has portrayed it to be. Instead, marijuana is highly useful as a legitimate medication, and allows many to obtain relief that they are unable to meet by chemical medications.

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After years of having no heroin arrests or deaths in Shelby County, 2010 has shown a rising number of both, according to the Shelby County Sheriff's office.

Lt. Chris George, commander of the Shelby County Drug Enforcement Task Force, said in the last nine months, the task force has had several heroin arrests.

"In the past we haven't had any sort of contact with heroin," George said. "It's just strange to go years with no contact at all and over the last few months see an increase."

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Michael Lapihuska, a former Anniston resident, is facing a jail sentence and two years probation for bringing his prescription with him from California to Alabama when he came home for the holidays last December. The problem -- his prescription was for marijuana.

Lapihuska was arrested Dec. 15, when a police officer stopped him on McClellan Boulevard near Walmart for hitch hiking. The officer searched him, found a prescription bottle of marijuana in his pocket and asked Lapihuska to take it out.

When Lapihuska complied, he was arrested for possession despite the doctor's recommendation he presented to the officer.

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The question that Alabamians must ask themselves, with the current trend tending toward legalization of medical marijuana, is it fair to deny patients the medicine that they need and should have every right to use?

Once again, the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act will be presented to the Alabama House of Representatives for its approval in the next session. The bill would allow the use of medical marijuana in Alabama.

The MPCCA passed both house judiciary and rules sub-committees before Alabama Compassionate Care and the bill's sponsor Patricia Todd agreed to remove the bill and work out some of the problems legislators had before going forward.

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Drug use poses a major risk to the health, well-being and academic performance of young adults. Together, parents, teachers and law enforcement share in the responsibility to offer preventive education, guidance and intervention to adolescents.

However, that responsibility is not well-served by the decision of the Trussville Board of Education to promote school-based drug testing for students. The American Academy of Pediatrics formally opposed such testing in its 2007 statement for several reasons.

First, school-based testing programs are not ready to administer such tests in a secure fashion. For the results to be valid, each student will need to be personally observed while urinating. It is not clear that school personnel can or should undertake this task.

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Bravo to Trussville City Schools for implementing a new random drug-test policy. It is another great tool for parents and teachers to ensure a quality, safe, drug-free education for our children.

This policy seems well thought out and fair. For parents who are truly concerned about the safety and well-being of their children, this will be a safeguard and, maybe, an early warning. For parents who suspect there might be something that's "not quite right" with their child, this will be a great help.

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Marijuana goes Mainstream in Amaerica

The casual use of marijuana is becoming increasingly accepted, or at least tolerated, in the United States.

According to The San Francisco Chronicle, 100 million Americans have used weed, with 15 million smoking in the last month and two million more people trying it each year.

According to The New York Times, citing Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, Americans spend about $25 billion a year on weed.

Medical marijuana has created what amounts to the legalization of weed in 14 states so far, including California. Fortune magazine calls it "the greening of America."

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The recent defeat of the jobs bill and the possibility that Medicaid services will be unfunded throughout the coming fiscal year spells disaster for Alabama's poor. Pregnant women who depend on Medicaid will be unable to get prenatal care. Our state already has the second highest infant mortality rate in the nation.

Sure, we could borrow money, but with the national debt higher than it has ever been, there really isn't any money to borrow. Besides, there's a better solution.

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The recent defeat of the jobs bill in Congress and the possibility Medicaid services will be underfunded for the coming fiscal year spell disaster for the state's poor. Pregnant women who depend on Medicaid will be unable to get prenatal care. Alabama already has the second-highest infant mortality rate in the nation.

Here's a solution: Legalize the sale of marijuana to adults and use the tax proceeds to offset budget shortfalls.

Currently, Alabama spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to enforce marijuana laws. That money is used to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate nonviolent citizens. It is the epitome of a negative return on an investment.

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The rotor wash of the gray and blue Bell Jet Ranger whips the treetops as the helicopter's pilot flies over a recently cut pine plantation looking for Alabama's top cash crop.

"I'm going to put them just outside your window, but I'm not going to tell you where they are," Mike Manley, an Alabama Department of Public Safety pilot, told an observer sitting in the front left hand seat of the chopper. "Tell me when you think you have them."

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