SubscribeRegarding George Will’s Dec. 2 column on marijuana, the drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. In 2008, there were 847,863 marijuana arrests in the U.S. Almost 90 percent of those were for simple possession.
At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The result of this ongoing culture war is not necessarily lower rates of use. The U.S. has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available.
Decriminalization is long overdue. Taxing and regulating marijuana would render the $50 billion drug war obsolete. As long as organized crime controls marijuana distribution, consumers will continue to come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. This “gateway” is a direct result of marijuana prohibition.
ROBERT SHARPE,Arlington, Va.
Serve constituents
Members of Congress should represent the 58 percent of Americans who said “no” to the health care bill in the latest Rasmussen Poll. If our elected officials can’t find it in them to support their constituents, discontinue the electoral process and let registered voters decide the issues.
The health care program is scheduled to kick in sometime in 2013. Between now and then, taxpayers will pay for their existing health care and also for the 2013 start-up costs.
This administration indicated it was going to clean up Medicare abuse and fraud. The savings would be a significant source of revenue for funding health care. Is a progress report on the horizon?
The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan “just the facts” agency, reports this health care plan will be a financial bust in 10 years. How will we pay to fix this program? What about starting with eliminating the administration’s 40 or so czars? Who are they and what have they accomplished? Please don’t tell me the economy would have been worse without them.
The president recently said the private sector was producing more with fewer people. Why can’t the federal government learn from this?
And then there’s the stimulus money that was reported to have created or saved jobs in nonexistent precincts. The administration covered this by saying those who submitted the numbers didn’t know their precinct number. If money was sent, get it back. Also, take back any stimulus money sent to real precincts on the basis of bogus reports of jobs created or saved.
JOHN SHOCKLEY,Topeka
