Washington should stay out of state's marijuana law
California voters have mandated that marijuana be available to sufferers of cancer, AIDS and other hideous diseases. I recently lost my mother to cancer. She was so medicated for pain that she could not eat. She starved to death. Cancer may be the ultimate problem, but most cancer deaths are caused by starvation in advance of potential mortality of the illness.
Proposition 215 was too late for my mother, but it will probably prolong the lives and comfort of thousands of others.
In spite of the benefits of Proposition 215, and the clear will of the people in a legal election, the federal government has begun looking for sneaky ways to get around California's law.
This amounts to meddling in our state's affairs without constitutional justification. The claim that Proposition 215 is a poorly written law has merit. But fine-tuning is a matter for Californians.
Arrests don't work; education does. If one believes the San Jose Mercury News' research, that the CIA peddles dope, then Proposition 215 might threaten profit margins. Aside from such speculations, there is no good reason for Washington to be involved in California politics. Federal pot busts should stop. Money should be transferred to treatment programs and education.
The only precedent for federal intervention in substance control is the Volsted Act, the Constitutional amendment creating Prohibition. After abuses associated with Prohibition were understood, the Volsted Act was repealed.
Once Washington establishes a precedent for intervention, whether by arrests or by discriminatory distribution of money for schools and humanitarian purposes, all rights of our state are endangered. We must resist Washington's abuse of Proposition 215 in trying to take over California politics.
Federal marijuana arrests are pointless. And just as citizens must not discriminate in hiring and promotion, Washington must not be allowed to discriminate in disbursement of funds.
David P. Armentrout, Ph. D.
Los Gatos
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, December 25, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved