Editor, Times-Union: Matthew McHenry’s “Never Legalize Pot 2” is just a copy of the first letter that appeared in the March 23 edition of the Times-Union, which I find curiously strange, either by error or intent.
Marijuana is no greater a gateway drug than alcohol and tobacco. These are all forms of self medication and in a truly free society, self medication should be a right not a privilege, even though the abuse of such is always a possibility. This tenet is probably why alcohol and tobacco are still legal in the United States.
Taxpayer-funded resistance to an abused substance should be channeled towards the eradication of Meth. This drug wastes little time as a gateway to anything. It addicts the user almost immediately and leads to complete destruction and quite often death. It is quickly and cheaply made and readily available. The most effective solution would be to make pseudo-ephedrine a schedule 3 drug available only by prescription. But as you would have it, Big Pharma decries this as an infringement on their constitutionally guaranteed right to free enterprise regardless of how destructive it might be.
The onslaught of Meth has filled our public elementary schools with evidence of its horror and the state’s recent fiscal hamstringing of DCS has left our school system with little to no recourse for helping the innocent children victimized by parents who use Meth.
You, sir, then go on to suggest religion in its Christian form as a substitute for the pharmacological forms of self medication. There is merit in that, if you need the psychological and social guidance that religion provides depending on the denomination of your choice and how it fits your lifestyle. What this state and country doesn’t need is a fundamentalist idelogue in office forcing religious views and moral judgement onto the general populace via legislation. Government is not in the business of persecuting people for their religious beliefs, unlike our allies elsewhere in the world. People in this country are more often persecuted for trying to maintain their freedom from religion.
