Letters To The Editor

ILLICIT DRUGS

People are catching on

Regarding your “From both sides” editorials, “Families, voters can make decision” and “Marijuana is just bad medicine” (Dec. 6), I commend you for your attempt at balance on the issue of reform of drug policy. I do not believe anyone was hoodwinked by passage of Propositions 200 and 215 in California and Arizona.

People have seen the fruits of our drug war - that it is destructive. They have seen the overburdened courts and the building of more and more prisons with their hard-earned tax money. They have seen the release of truly dangerous criminals because prisons are overflowing with low-level, non-violent drug offenders. They have seen the erosion of our civil liberties based upon a noble cause but fatally flawed policies.

People have seen the government forbidding legitimate research into the medical efficacy of marijuana and drug police making decisions that are the business of doctors and their patients only. They have seen the suffering of sick people forbidden to use medicine that works for them.

It is time to put the drug warriors out of business. Michael F. Marion Marysville, Wash.

Let people decide; let states test

Regarding the Dec. 6 “From both sides” editorials that deal with the recent passage of propositions in California and Arizona legalizing marijuana for the treatment of certain medical ailments: Opinion editor John Webster does not get it.

Webster, like ex-drug czar William Bennett, has this incredible arrogance and self-appointed medical authority and claims to know what form of medicine would benefit sick people.

Marijuana is not even a narcotic but has a Schedule 1 rating which, until now, has prevented scientists from studying the plant’s medical applications. Apparently, 5,000 years of use and countless personal testimonies, coupled with no reported deaths, had some bearing on the passage of these propositions. Even the government grows and supplies marijuana cigarettes to about a half-dozen sick people in the United States.

The people of California and Arizona have spoken in the form that a free society allows. Let them test the issue. Besides, no doctor has to prescribe a medicine he does not believe is effective.

Webster’s view seems to be an example of how the 30-year drug war has evolved to be worse than drugs (see the Feb. 12, 1996, issue of National Review). J.J. Satkoski Sagle, Idaho

Arguments against are what’s bad

Opinion editor John Webster’s weak argument opposing medical use of marijuana (“Marijuana is just bad medicine,” “From both sides,” Dec. 6 ) warns of the danger of the 400 chemicals in marijuana. Some are carcinogenic, but this isn’t of much concern to people with terminal illness.

Webster sneers that people might use marijuana for reduction of stress. For that matter, women might use it for relief of menstrual cramps and depression. So what? Is it worse than Prozac?

Webster inadvertently pointed to the influence of pharmaceutical companies in keeping marijuana illegal. If a patient can grow a plant in her back yard that relieves pain and suffering, the big drug-pushing companies could lose a lucrative market.

The benefits of advanced drugs shouldn’t negate the virtues of home remedies used for centuries. I may not run out to “peel a cascara tree and chew a fistful of bark,” but whenever I get a cold, I do make a pot of licorice root and peppermint tea. This unscientific therapy usually clears up my sore throat within a day, without my having to rush to the store to buy a bottle of sugar-enhanced, artificially colored and flavored cough medicine. Sugar, even penicillin, often weakens the immune system, as can marijuana.

Marijuana’s medical legitimacy is not new; it was listed in pharmaceutical catalogs until 1929. The problem is that government would have less control if people could cultivate their own marijuana. But that also is why making it illegal is hard to enforce without infringing on our basic liberties.

Let the voters choose their own medicine. Sara Kendall Spokane

Score is zero tolerance; we lose

Zero tolerance means zero brains. It has given us such mindless circumstances as kids being suspended from school for possessing Midol, aspirin or ginseng tablets from a health food store.

Zero tolerance would be fine for robots. When it comes to humans, such absolutes reek of failure.

Just like the war on drugs. All the billions of dollars wasted, all the arrests and property confiscations, all the criminals walking free so non-criminals can be locked up. This war is a miserable failure at best. It has become a war on our humanity.

More and more people are realizing we need to get smart about drugs or the prohibitionists’ dreams of an America of robots will come true. Medical use of marijuana has been re-established by voters in California and Arizona. But this very moment, the feds are scrambling to quash this will of the people, calling it a national tragedy.

How many more instances of voters shining a little intelligence on the war on drugs do you think it will take for our government to declare us too stupid and take away our vote?

Our government long has been working less and less for the people and more and more for wealthy special interests.

It is turning into government vs. the people. If an America of robots does not appeal to sh: i: not found Medical Lake

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

NEA has misplaced priorities

(Re: “WEA crossed important line,” letters, Nov. 26.

The Washington Education Association is facing prosecution by the state attorney general for using about $700,000 in teachers’ funds for political purposes without members’ consent. In the past year, a small group of teachers successfully has recovered a large portion of their WEA annual dues in a class action.

The WEA and National Education Association are major political contributors, yet they support political positions that often are opposed by a majority of local teachers.

Why do teachers belong to the WEA and NEA? In today’s litigious society, teachers require liability as well as medical insurance. They also need local bargaining unit representation with their school boards and administrations. Many teachers must support positions abhorrent to them or work without the local representation they deserve.

Under NEA and WEA rules, teachers cannot belong to bargaining units without NEA-WEA membership. Nonmembers aren’t entitled to legal protection.

It’s time to recognize that the purpose of the educational system is to educate our children, rather than to support a bureaucracy.

U.S. students rank 15th in science and 28th in math by world standards. The past 30 years have seen a steady decline in our international competitiveness, standard of living and educational standards.

The NEA is in a position to change our country’s future by exhibiting some genuine leadership. Why doesn’t it support the teachers who could correct the system, rather than promote its own bureaucracy? Bill Bender Spokane

Corrupt organization is in control

The Washington state Public Disclosure Commission has asked the attorney general to investigate whether the Washington Education Association is functioning as a political action committee rather than as a labor organization. This possibility should frighten anyone who cares about academic and intellectual freedom, civil liberties and government control of the citizenry.

The teachers union has betrayed teachers with massive illegal campaign financing with teachers’ compulsory dues. These practices undermine the moral authority of teachers to instill the virtues of honesty and integrity in our children.

More distressing is the prospect that the WEA is promoting its political ideology through curriculum and educational practices. It is a worrisome sign that the office of state superintendent of public instruction now is headed by a former WEA boss.

Is the threat of the WEA’s political agenda tainting our children’s curriculum even stronger now?

We should be greatly concerned that one of the most corrupt organizations in our state, the teachers union, is directing our children’s education through its increased control of teachers, curricula and school budgets. Steve Haxton Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

In over our heads and sinking

Imagine aligning 1 million dollar bills end to end in a nice straight line. At 6 inches per bill, that would equal 500,000 linear feet.

Now imagine stacking each dollar bill a million dollars high. Quite a wall of money, isn’t it? Such a row of bills, 94.7 miles long, would constitute $1 trillion - i.e., a thousand billions.

Our admitted and publicized national debt is approximately $5 trillion, and in terms of the above wall, it would be 473.5 miles long. Imagine, again, a wall of money, a million dollars high, extending from Spokane westward way past Seattle. You’re talking about big money here, aren’t you?

We American taxpayers get to pay interest on this huge amount of money. Isn’t that great? But who collects all that interest? Why, those who own U.S. Treasury bonds, that’s who.

Considering the size of the United States, its natural resources and the industriousness and creativity of its magnificent labor force, isn’t it amazing that we constantly go deeper and deeper into debt?

Perhaps there is some flaw in our system that permits this, or is it the people we elect to prestigious offices? Something surely is causing it or it wouldn’t be there, right?

Will we ever pay off this indebtedness? Will we ever reduce the interest? Don’t hold your breath. Earl G. Fox Spokane

Social Security reform is doable

Opinion editor John Webster’s Dec. 11 editorial regarding Social Security calls for some response.

Today’s workers will get something for their Social Security taxes paid in now. Granted, today’s taxes are transferred to today’s retirees. But in so doing, the worker becomes eligible for his/her own retirement payments, although they may be lower than expected.

Also, all workers pay 15.3 percent into the system - employers pay an equal amount to the 7.65 percent that is deducted from the workers’ pay.

My own preferred methods for dealing with the coming shortfall are:

1. Discontinue all cost of living increases for all who now receive them, retired or not. COLAs are one of the engines of inflation. Obviously, you cannot continually raise the output to beneficiaries and not raise the input by those who are taxed.

2. Enlarge the paying base. Why shouldn’t Social Security contributions apply to everyone who works? Make the payments and benefits applicable to all government workers, for instance.

3. The effect of “automation and global competition” Webster mentions are two different things. Automation always has produced new jobs faster than it has made old jobs obsolete, in a viable working society. But global competition should be counterattacked for the benefit of our workers. Richard T. Brown Spokane

Postal bonuses out of line

I sure hope someone else out in the general public feels the way I do about your article on U.S. Postal Service bonuses (“Postal Service gives bonuses after profitable, punctual year,” Nov. 28). I understand that we don’t want the Postal Service to run at a loss, but a $1.5 billion profit, and then to turn around and give approximately 10 percent back in bonuses, seems a little ridiculous. A bonus of $12,500 is more than a lot of people in Spokane make. George D. Bartz Medical Lake