Letters of the Day

yes, lets stop the hypocrisy!

Regarding “A More Wicked Weed” (April 23): The Iowa crime-lab officials who stated that marijuana today is 10 times more potent than it was 30 years ago are mistaken.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy made this claim in 2002, but retreated sharply in 2005, when it stated in a newspaper advertisement that today’s marijuana is, on average, only twice as strong as that of decades past.

Claims of vastly increased potency are based on research from the 1970s using a small number of poorly stored samples in which THC had degraded before testing.

More important, there is no scientific evidence demonstrating greater risks of addiction or health problems from higher-THC marijuana.

The Marijuana Policy Project strongly opposes children smoking marijuana, but we don’t think that exaggerating the dangers will help young people or their parents. The best way to keep our kids away from marijuana is to tax and regulate it like alcohol and tobacco.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, more teens today smoke marijuana than cigarettes, which proves that the most effective way to keep a substance away from children is to put it behind the counter and require valid identification for purchases.

Factually inaccurate articles like this destroy any chance we have at a reasonable and informed debate about our nation’s marijuana policies.

— Rebecca Greenberg, Marijuana Policy Project, Washington, D.C.

and

The problem with marijuana is an unregulated market. Remember alcohol prohibition in the 1930s? You had high-potency forms of alcohol being made in people’s bathtubs, only bathtub gin was often toxic. Even at today’s higher standards of potency, marijuana still hasn’t produced a single death in recorded history.

If you want to have any kind of control you have to legalize and regulate the commercial production and sale [of marijuana].

All the exaggerated scare stories have only increased interest in, and experimentation with, marijuana. I’m sure all the pot dealers want to thank the Register for the free advertising.

If your kid experiments with alcohol, at least your kid isn’t going to be stigmatized for life by a drug conviction. The chances for intervention and treatment are better when society recognizes that people need help instead of locking them up and labeling them as rejects for the rest of their lives.

So, go on keeping marijuana illegal and forcing it into the black market. See where it has gotten you?

— Carl Olsen, Des Moines.

and

Marijuana today is 10 times stronger than that of previous generations?

Having smoked the “wicked weed” of the ’70s and today myself, I can assure you this is not true. The super high-potency strains that came from places like Thailand and Panama were much more potent than any of today’s marijuana.

The reason teens prefer marijuana over alcohol is because it is easier to get than beer. Most pot dealers don’t check IDs like liquor and convenience stores do. As long as marijuana continues to be illegal, this trend will continue.

It seems funny to have a state government that controls the distribution of a dangerous drug, such as alcohol, turn around and throw people in jail for possessing marijuana. Especially considering all the people who die of alcohol poisoning. It is not possible to die of THC poisoning. Let’s stop the hypocrisy.

— Lee Selly, Des Moines.

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