One Toke Short Of Valid Complaint Letter Of The Week: From Nov. 18

Re: The Nov. 10 letter from the disgruntled reader who says President Bill Clinton is (among other insults) an “alleged drug addict.”

Any one of the many millions of people my age who did inhale in the ‘60s or ‘70s can tell you marijuana smoke is harsh. To get stoned, you had to inhale and then hold in the smoke. Some people just coughed it out and never did get the hang of it.

I have no reason to doubt Clinton’s statement of four years ago, that when he tried marijuana as a young man, he didn’t inhale. Nor do I feel the flower children of the ‘60s and ‘70s should have to apologize for the accomplishments our rejection of the 1950s status quo was able to eventually bring about - improvements toward integrating women, blacks, other people of color and the handicapped into the work force. We also focused public attention on the growing environmental crisis.

Marijuana in the ‘60s was part of a broad-based movement of social consciousness-raising that permanently changed the face of American politics for the better.

Betsy Ross made the first American flag of hemp (marijuana cloth), and I agree with Bob Dole that we shouldn’t burn it. At this point in our history, marijuana is more valuable for paper making, as a substitute for killing off our last remaining old-growth forests.

I also want to ask the reader who calls Clinton an “alleged drug addict” if he would think someone who took a sip of whiskey, spat it out and never drank again should be called an alleged alcoholic? Karen Schumaker Pullman

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