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Watch pot opposition

The Sept. 11 guest opinion, “Time to end marijuana ban,” is right on. Putting people in jail for marijuana use has not stopped or even slowed that use. Indeed, it costs us dearly in all the ways cited by doctors Thorburn and Wood.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ most recent newsletter, however, offers us a glimpse of the opposition to the initiative that would “replace marijuana prohibition with a public health approach.” Job creators, she claims, say that “if we want to create jobs in the private sector, we need to shrink the size of the public sector.”

We see more and more jails and prisons going from the public to the private sector, and that’s a problem. The aim of private corporations is to maximize profit for investors, and no private prison company is likely to lobby for any cause that would significantly reduce the prison population.

In the coming campaign on Initiative 502, pay attention to the affiliations of those who oppose the initiative.

Edward A. Reynolds

Spokane

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