Letters to the editor, Nov. 26, 2015

Reader objects to View editorial cartoon

I have been reading View for many years and have come to look forward to the information contained within. I have to say I am very offended by the Oct. 22 editorial cartoon. I am a longtime medical cannabis advocate and also a patient. Medical cannabis was approved years ago without safe access outlines provided by Nevada. Advocates have worked very hard to acquire the right to have safe access.

It is not medical cannabis patients who were out petitioning earlier this year. Those petitioners were gathering signatures for recreational use, not medical cannabis. I personally have no objection to recreational use for those older than 21, but I do object to the program/petition coming into play before patients have a solid program in place for medical cannabis. Much was done to help the business of medical cannabis, but we have much work to do to protect medical cannabis patients' basic human rights — the right to work, be a parent, drive, own a gun, grow our own and make our own concentrates and edibles. Recreational use questions have slowed the process and muddied the waters for medical cannabis — i.e., your way-off-target editorial cartoon!

Advocates have worked very hard to educate the public about medical cannabis and to break the tie dye stigma attached to medical cannabis use. There are attorneys, doctors, nurses and many, many professionals who use medical cannabis for their pain or other issues. This does not mean it is in use during working hours, nor does the presence of nanograms in the blood or urine prove intoxication as nanograms stay in our bodies for a long time. Medical cannabis ingested is the way to heal, but if we choose to heal ourselves with this herb, we can lose our basic human rights to be parents, workers, drive, or even own a weapon because we have nanograms in our system always and are therefore considered intoxicated at all times.

— Vicki Higgins, Medical Cannabis Advocate

Reader voices concern over lane issue on 95

I want to know when the Nevada Department of Transportation will widen U.S. Highway 95 eastbound under the Spaghetti Bowl? It goes from three lanes to two lanes and then back to three lanes beyond the interchange. How long will we have to suffer this daily bottleneck? Years? Decades? Who designed this interchange with this big, gigantic flaw?

I go to some of the NDOT design review meetings for the public and ask them this same question. No one wants to answer. They must be embarrassed to not want to talk about it. This should be a high priority project!

— Dennis Miller, resident of Las Vegas since 1987

Reader takes issue with construction remnants

First of all, thank you for giving us this opportunity to write or tell you about some of our concerns. One of my big concerns is the construction signs all over the streets, freeways and so on. It has been more than 10 years since I moved to Las Vegas, and the problem is getting worse and worse. What I mean is, the metal signs, the plastic cones, are left on the street left and right for months and years even after the construction has been completed. That is a very dangerous, big traffic hazard. Have seen incidents happening. Big cones flying in front of the cars...

— Rahel Solomon, Las Vegas