LETTERS: Abuse of power fuels failed drug war
To the editor:
Monday’s Review-Journal editorial actually used the word “insane” to describe certain anti-marijuana laws. On the same day, there was an article from The Associated Press on testing for tainted, illegally grown marijuana (“Scientists aim to find quick, easy way to test for tainted marijuana”).
The tests are for mold, mildew, insect parts, salmonella, E.coli and pesticides, all of which may be smoked and inhaled by medical marijuana patients, as well as recreational users, because those users can’t get marijuana through FDA-controlled sources. This, too, is insane, and it’s the end result of a democratic, constitutional republic that’s gone stark mad from chronic abuse of the most insidious drug of all: power.
FRED BILELLO
LAUGHLIN
Drug war arrests
To the editor:
The Review-Journal’s Monday editorial (“No drugs on you?”), concerning the incarceration of people who do not possess drugs, is a lot of things: infuriating, misleading, inaccurate and irresponsible.
Having been a police officer for 32 years, I take exception to much of what was written, and to one line in particular: alleging police forces “lock up citizens for nothing at all.” Really? First of all, any police officer who engages in arresting people for nothing should not be a cop. The Review-Journal cited the Norman Gurley case in Ohio as an example. I am not familiar with the case, but I am highly skeptical of what the Review-Journal calls facts. Nor am I familiar with the Ohio law that made having a secret compartment a felony. Apparently the legislature was convinced it had merit.
Police everywhere operate on one basic concept: probable cause. The Review-Journal questions an Ohio state trooper’s veracity on whether or not the vehicle in question reeked of the smell of marijuana. I have experienced the same thing many times. When a police officer approaches a vehicle and notices the unmistakable, pungent odor of marijuana permeating from the car, it becomes obvious that there is marijuana there.
If the Review-Journal had an inclination to be fair and objective, they might have wondered why, combined with the odor, such a secret compartment existed. The possibility a person constructed it to conceal sunglasses or tools doesn’t, as the Review-Journal suggested, pass the sniff test. You know the old adage, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck …”
While joining the ranks to legalize grass, you might want to consider why a huge number of companies have policies mandating drug testing for marijuana. I wonder if the Review-Journal does such testing.
WILLIAM C. DWYER
LAS VEGAS
Obama legacy
To the editor:
Lying to Congress, the police or the IRS is a crime to be punished severely in some cases. Unfortunately, lying to the American people, even for personal gain, is not a crime. We have seen just that in the past few months with our nefarious so-called leader, President Barack Obama, when he stood in front of TV cameras, knowingly lying, and said Americans would be able to keep their health insurance plans.
The president’s health care law is clearly on the path to socialized medicine, and his distribute-the-wealth goal is bordering on the Lenin doctrine. And in foreign affairs, President Obama and worthless Secretary of State John Kerry are putting the world in harm’s way with Iran, just for their own legacy.
WILLIAM WHITNEY
LAS VEGAS
