Tue, Nov 10 2009
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Published October 10, 2007 01:45 am - I have watched with bemusement the brouhaha unfolding in the pages of the Globe over the issue of lessening the penalties for cannabis (marijuana) in Joplin. It’s funny to me the reactionary opposition such a common-sense idea invokes. If one seriously researches the issue, it is obvious that all current laws dealing with this plant are absurd. These laws are all founded on lies, xenophobic hysteria and perjured testimony before the Congress of the United States. Voices: Where are successes? I have watched with bemusement the brouhaha unfolding in the pages of the Globe over the issue of lessening the penalties for cannabis (marijuana) in Joplin.
It’s funny to me the reactionary opposition such a common-sense idea invokes. If one seriously researches the issue, it is obvious that all current laws dealing with this plant are absurd. These laws are all founded on lies, xenophobic hysteria and perjured testimony before the Congress of the United States. If we are to be a nation of law, a nation where civility is paramount in behavior and discussion, then should we also not have laws based on truth with a view toward actual justice in our legal system? If we follow bad laws, laws whose very foundations are rotten and corrupted with no truth to them, how do we differ from petty dictatorships? I would also ask, where are those among us who remember that we were once known as “the Land of the Free”? A nation that leads the world in incarceration (both per capita and in total numbers) has traveled far from such a grand notion. Finally, I would ask those who oppose this idea of decriminalization: “Where are the successes of this New Prohibition that warrants our following it one day longer?” Prohibition failed once and we ended it. It is time to do so again. Allan Erickson, Drug Policy Forum of Oregon Eugene, Ore. 
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