To the editor:

In response to the Monday article that covered the upcoming votes on Questions 4 and 5:

The article itself seemed fair, but the people interviewed who opposed the passage of Question 5 did not seem to lay out all the facts. Here are a few that your readers should know.

First, every Nevadan needs to understand that this is not a vote about smoking, nor is this an argument about whether secondhand smoke is unhealthy. This vote has become about big business versus small business.

Think back. For many years, special-interest groups have rallied in support of this proposal -- but funny how it never made the ballot until the casinos were exempt. Special-interest groups can't fight casinos, at least not yet, so they attack the small business owners.

This is not like California or other states that passed a blanket "no smoking indoors" policy, under which no business had preference or an exemption. Question 5 blatantly offers just that to the casino industry. This law will take from one company and give to another. Mass layoffs are in our future -- that's not a prediction, that's fact.

Nevadans need to help protect other Nevadans' jobs. Protect small business, not the big casinos -- they're protected enough.

D. DEMIRJIAN

HENDERSON

Marijuana question

To the editor:

In the Wednesday Review-Journal, I was pictured in the photo that accompanied the article, "Clergy members support effort to legalize marijuana." Whereas I do wholeheartedly support Question 7 on the November ballot, I also know that the question has nothing to do with the legalization of marijuana. Your headline is just plain wrong.

This initiative is about our present marijuana laws, which have failed for many years and continue to fail at the cost of billions of dollars. Yes, I do believe with all my heart that it is time to stand up and challenge the present situation.

I believe that this initiative is a positive and just step toward the regulation and control of marijuana. It is my hope that this initiative could stop violent criminals from selling marijuana to our youth. Dealers simply do not card and are pros at making marijuana available to vulnerable youth.

I also believe that marijuana should be in the category of alcohol and cigarettes.

By controlling, regulating and taxing marijuana, funds could be available for many needy and under-funded programs such as mental health care and education. The present policy encourages and generates violence, a major activity of most criminal elements. This initiative won't stop criminal activity, but it will go a long way toward protecting vulnerable youth and funding programs necessary for the well being of our citizens.

Toni Woodson

LAS VEGAS

Foster care

To the editor:

We have been foster mothers here in Las Vegas for more than 35 years. We have been listening to all these groups of lawyers and such who are now waking up to the fact that there are too many babies and young children in Child Haven. Their solution is to close it.

How about the county spending more money on the children? How about these lawyers licensing and taking an infant into their homes? Where do these "do gooders" think that the children in Child Haven go if they succeed in closing it?

It is a very difficult job taking these drug-exposed, failure-to-thrive babies with almost no background information -- including medical -- and trying to keep them alive and thriving.

One lady suggested that if we didn't get paid, we would do a better job. OK. Does she think we do this for the $19 a day that we get? (This is for housing, clothing, food and transportation to visits with parents.)

I wonder what she or her husband make, and if they would do a better job at what they do if they didn't get a paycheck.

Give this new county administration a chance to change things -- and attend the next County Commission meeting and demand more money for recruiting and retaining foster parents.

pauline kennedy

sybil collins

las vegas

Union yes

To the editor:

In her column of Oct. 5, Erin Neff says that County Commission candidate Susan Brager would join Tom Collins, Chris Giunchigliani and Yvonne Atkinson Gates as a solid block vote for the Southern Nevada labor unions.

In other words, instead of analyzing proposals brought before them as to the effect it would have on all their constituents, they would simply vote the way they were told by these unions.

Having accepted large contributions from the unions in the form of money and service -- such as the stalking of opponents with a video camera -- how could Ms. Brager argue?

My problem is that I fail to see how that is much different from what Erin Kenny, Lance Malone, Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey did. The payment methodology is different, but the end result is the same: vote buying.

Jack Kirkey

Las Vegas

Bigoted Scouts

To the editor:

In his letter of Oct. 5, Fred Armstrong implies that those who criticize the Foley/Hastert pedophilia debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives should not attack the Boy Scouts for their discrimination against gays and atheists. How ludicrous to compare the two by assuming that being gay and being a pedophile are somehow related.

Because more heterosexuals commit pedophilia, does Armstrong believe the Scouts should also ban heterosexuals?

Discrimination by the Boy Scouts against atheists and gays is based simply on a discriminatory concept of morality and is similar to the view of "morality" held by the KKK, Aryan Nation and other bigoted organizations.

Mel Lipman

Las Vegas

Rate games

To the editor:

I just read in Newsday.com that the Long Island Power Authority is lowering its rates by 4 percent due to decreasing fuel costs. Will Nevada Power do the same after raising its rates repeatedly due to higher fuel costs?

JOHN CODY

HENDERSON

Stop violence

To the editor:

In response to the Thursday story, "Teen's e-mail leads to guilty plea":

It is horrible that a high school student would threaten to kill another kid his own age. It is amazing to think someone my age could be so heartless as to threaten someone at all.

Our world is getting to the point where it's not safe anywhere. I hate violence and want it to stop. And to all the people who are saying that violence is OK: You are wrong.

Look at the kids who are threatening people over the Internet. That's what your example is doing. It is provoking kids to fight and kill innocent people.

Keep a better eye on kids and what they are doing. High school should be a fun experience, not one that terrifies people.

I should know. I am a freshman at Palo Verde High School and I know I don't want to feel threatened every day I come to school.

Alecsa Keller

LAS VEGAS