Dear Editor,
Response to a Marijuana Medical? ? Growing Facility in Lincoln County?
The facility can be a target for break-ins which would increase drug trafficking on the street.
Our citizens might not be safe from the people who would attempt to break in and steal the product.
Many communities have raised questions about security, specifically about preventing the product from leaking into the black market by theft through criminals, also criminals that use falsified medical ID?s or patients who turn around and resell the marijuana.
Then there is also the chance that muggers, who might lie in wait for patients leaving with marijuana and then sell it on the street.
Then we have the threat of people who imbibe marijuana after leaving the facility and then drive.?
Many communities have expressed outrage over fears of increased crime and as well as fear of decreased property values if a marijuana business is allowed in their county.
How do we make sure that our kids don?t obtain the marijuana?
?Teenagers are smoking more marijuana, and their perceptions about the drugs? dangers have dropped dramatically over the past decade,? according to a new government-backed study.
?Officials say that the trend is a sign of the failure of medical marijuana regimes to restrict pot from getting into children?s hands and should refute activists who support regulating or legalizing the drug.
About 60 percent of high school seniors say marijuana is not harmful, according to an annual study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, up from about 56 percent last year. More than 6 percent smoke marijuana daily, which is more than a three-fold increase from 1993.?
The report also found that about a third of high school seniors who smoke pot in states with medical marijuana obtained the drug through someone else?s prescription.
?The promise in medical marijuana states to the voters was that there would be regulatory schemes to prevent marijuana from falling into the hands of young people. In every state, that promise has clearly been broken,? said Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House?s Office of National Drug Control Policy.? ?This provides a potential avenue for young people to get marijuana, and I think that?s something about which most people are pretty concerned,? he added.
The prevalence of legal marijuana could continue to lower teenagers? perceived dangers about the substance in those states and throughout the country, which could further increase drug use, officials said.
One High School in Illinois received plenty of information about marijuana from their health teachers, but when it came to using the drug, many shrugged off the lessons and just said, ?You Only Live Once.?
Marijuana use has a direct impact on teens. It compromises academic success by impairing memory, abstract thinking and problem-solving.
I for one do not want Lincoln County to be one of the pot centers of Nevada.? The operation will have a negative impact on our community.? We already have our hands full with substance abuse prevention in our area without having to add to the problem.
The question comes down to what is appropriate.? One time Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan described situations like this as, ?defining deviancy down.?? Do we allow this to occur just for the opportunity of acquiring some additional employment and taxes within the County?? If we do, it will be our 30 pieces of silver.
I believe that the response to this Special Use Permit application is, to just say ?no.?
Sincerely,
Dave Hurd
Dear Editor,?
Medical marijuana: one hot topic these days. Watching the TV news out of Vegas, it?s all they talk about, each newscast and every day, on and on and on. Our country has no shortage of hypocrites, and nowhere have they shown their true colors lately than in the people involved with the whole medical marijuana business. It?s a medicine so they say. Well, if it is, why are all the powers to be involved in approving the production of, distribution of, and sale of the ?medicine? in a much different way than all other medicines.
Medicine. What a bunch of bunk. It?s dope, just dope. You know why they call it dope don?t you? Because you have to be a dope to use it. Now the powers-to-be, who are they? It?s the city and county commissioners, mayors, public officials, and political leaders. They all seem to be on the bandwagon that?s really gaining momentum.
Why are they all jumping on? Follow the money.?
Why are all laws and policies enacted in this country? Just follow the money.?
All our mover and shaker public officials are just giddy over the idea and why? It?s the money. They all have such big dollar signs in their eyes that they can?t see anything else. Just look at all the tax and fee dollars this new ?medicine? will bring in. Lots of money in the coffers of the public entities, and possibly in the pockets of the individuals as well.
Now where does the hypocrite part come in? If this stuff is really a medicine, it would be submitted to the FDA for approval first. If approved, then it would be prescribed by real doctors, and a pharmacist in a drugstore would fill the prescription. In other words it would be a pill we would take. But no, the way all the people and agencies are treating this ?medicine? is as though it were dope, which is, of course, all it is. They are all preoccupied in passing laws to control what neighborhoods the farms, warehouses, and stores are located in, and how close to a church or school they can be etc. Sounds more like regulating liquor stores, doesn?t it?
Have you taken a look at these ?dispensaries? for medical marijuana? Lots of shelves loaded with glass containers filled with buds of dope. Oops, I meant medicine, all with cute names to them. I guess that means that if a doctor writes a prescription for this stuff, then the poor sick person gets to go to the medicine store and point to the jar of medicine best suited for his illness. Bologna. It means that he gets to choose what type of dope he likes to smoke.
Speaking of smoke. Another hypocrisy here. Sucking in a bunch of smoke, which might contain some medicine in it to treat an illness, now that makes sense. That?s about the same as pouring some antibiotic powder into a glass of dilute cyanide poison and drinking it. If smoke is good for us, why do the firefighters wear air packs when going into a smoke filled house?
If we are going to legalize this stuff, let?s stop playing cute with it, and bringing it in the back door calling it a medicine. Let?s face it, the whole country is heading for the eventual legalization of the use of marijuana.
Why is this going to happen? Follow the money.?
What makes it the right thing to do is that it generates a huge amount of money. Lots of individuals get rich off this stuff, as well as governmental coffers getting fat from the taxes and fees on it. And while we are at it, let?s make bank robbery legal as well, and just figure out how to tax it.
Sincerely,
LD
Les Derkovitz, Pioche