{"id":440047,"date":"2010-03-17T18:57:40","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T22:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011372025_drugwarsathomeandabroad.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-03-17T18:57:40","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T22:57:40","slug":"drug-wars-at-home-and-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/440047","title":{"rendered":"Drug wars at home and abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

No one needs a pound of pot<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

Now that I see Steve Sarich was abusing the law and being greedy \u2014 probably selling for profit \u2014 I don\u2019t have as much sympathy for him [\u201cHow much medical pot is too much?\u201d page one, March 17]. So it was an illegal operation under the guise of medicine, obviously.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand why the amounts people are allowed to have are so large? I don\u2019t smoke anymore, but do you know how much a pound of pot is?<\/p>\n

This medical-marijuana business is shady, I believe. They should just make it legal, taxed and regulated at normal stores \u2014 for medicine or recreation. No one needs to always have a keg of Budweiser or a fully stocked bar around the house and no one needs a pound of pot.<\/p>\n

I am outspoken about a lot of things I don\u2019t like, but I don\u2019t break the laws I wish to see changed. Too bad people were injured in this event and still feel upset about the militarized response. I still hope for the basic laws to be changed.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Brian Caldwell, Everett<\/em><\/p>\n

Legalize to avoid more incidents in Mexico and at home<\/strong><\/p>\n

A home invasion and shootout in Kirkland and an American consular official and her husband shot in their car in Mexico with their baby left crying in the back seat [\u201cDanger signs apparent before Mexico attacks,\u201d News, March 16]. What else do we need before we start looking at the economics that fuel the marijuana trade?<\/p>\n

Keeping pot illegal just makes it more expensive because you have to pay a lot more to motivate businesspeople to risk jail to sell it to you. All that cash attracts competition that is then expressed through the barrel of a gun. Let\u2019s remember the lessons of Prohibition, which attempted to ban a substance far more damaging to health and society: alcohol.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s change our policies about marijuana and put it on the same footing as alcohol \u2014 regulated, taxed and far cheaper \u2014 which will take the drug lords out of the business. Repealing Prohibition ended the gang wars in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s decriminalize marijuana and end the gun battles in Mexico as well as here at home.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mark Nassutti, Kirkland<\/em><\/p>\n

Gun trafficking to blame<\/strong><\/p>\n

Commenting on the level of drug violence in Juarez, Mexico, The Seattle Times\u2019 editorial board says, \u201cThese gruesome tallies are the byproduct of a lethal industry that satisfies U.S. appetites\u201d [\u201cA war close to home,\u201d Opinion, March 16].<\/p>\n

The president of Mexico agrees; Felipe Calder\u00f3n says that little will change as long as the United States continues to make gun purchases so easy. He knows that odds are 9-to-1 that the weapons used in Saturday\u2019s killing of American consulate workers were purchased in the United States.<\/p>\n

Now the NRA lobbyists will tell us the problem is that the strict gun-control laws in Mexico leave honest Mexicans defenseless against the criminal element of their society. However, according to a report published in The Seattle Times on Feb. 7, one is more than three times as likely to be murdered in the capital of the United States \u2014 where guns are easily accessible to law-abiding citizens \u2014 than in Mexico City \u2014 where there isn\u2019t easy access.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sue Griswold, Mill Creek<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one needs a pound of pot Editor, The Times: Now that I see Steve Sarich was abusing the law and being greedy \u2014 probably selling for profit \u2014 I don\u2019t have as much sympathy for him [\u201cHow much medical pot is too much?\u201d page one, March 17]. So it was an illegal operation under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}