ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 12, 1996 TAG: 9601120071
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN T. JORDAN
SEVERAL people have written letters to the editor recently to protest what they viewed as lenient sentencing accorded to the ``Phototron Pot'' defendants. I'm writing to express an opposing viewpoint.
I think that the growers of so-called Phototron Pot (it sounds like something out of the mind of cyberspace author William Gibson, doesn't it?) should be set free. Why? It's about time that we return to the roots of what made our country great: a live-and-let-live attitude.
Let's face it: The drug war is a failure and a fraud, and above all, it's chiefly about power and money - not stopping crime. To use a media analogy, the hometown we used to call ``Mayberry'' has turned into ``Stalag 17.''
We've been scammed into believing that more police and more prisons are good. We are expected to think that granting government more authority to snoop into the lives of private citizens represents a positive solution. What it represents is the boot of fascism!
The cure for drug abuse is much more evil than the disease itself. If we don't end this collective failure and legalize drugs immediately, our freedoms will completely perish. It doesn't take a cyberspace writer to envision a global SWAT team on every block.
I find it to be the height of societal hypocrisy to outlaw pot, but to endorse alcohol, tobacco, fatty fast food, abortions, prescription chill pills and the casino we call the Virginia State Lottery.
We pride ourselves on being a ``diverse'' and a ``tolerant'' nation. I'll certainly take the United States over China, but it seems that the only thing we consistently accommodate is a big and confiscatory government.
No, I don't advocate distributing drugs to schoolchildren, nor do I think it intelligent to allow someone on crack to operate a motor vehicle. Lighting up a doobie in a government building is also an unwise expression to make. Quite frankly, I don't advocate anything beyond a daily vitamin supplement. But I do wish to say that ``the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'' shouldn't prohibit using marijuana any more than it does the consumption of liquor.
Prosecuting a pot user or a grower doesn't bring a drug criminal to justice. It creates an entire class of unjustly held political prisoners - all at taxpayers' expense. Woe be it unto those outside the mainstream! Woe be it unto the taxpayers!
I don't plan to put the ``Phototron Pot'' gang on next year's Christmas card list. By the same token, I do plan to avoid all overreaching law-enforcement officials, grandstanding attorneys and stifling busybodies.
John T. Jordan, of Blacksburg, is a self-employed entrepreneur.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB