Maynard Short: Thanks for editorial

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Share this Email, Facebook, Twitter
Discuss 7 comments

Thank you for your editorial stance in the paper about the marijuana centers. I agree that they should be banned. I realize that it took a considerable amount of courage for the newspaper to take a definitive stand on such an explosive topic.

It is this kind of leadership that the city of Steamboat Springs and Routt County was looking for.

The voice for marijuana has been so loud and derisive that most people are afraid to make a comment against it, for fear of a public rebuke from the pro pot crowd.

They don’t want to be looked at as if they were against the freedom of the individual. The American way is to let people do what they want within the accepted restrictions of the social structure, like speed limits and traffic lights.

We also have been beaten up with the comparison of marijuana and alcohol, as if sponsoring one automatically should allow the other. Prohibition didn’t work, therefore banning marijuana centers won’t work. Very few of these complaining people lived prohibition or have studied the social engineering experiment that was prohibition. We have a society that allows alcohol today, but it is well-regulated and controlled. There also is zero tolerance for young people to participate in the alcohol world. Even with that, we still have a serious social problem with alcohol abuse. Why would we want to sponsor another one. As everyone knows, the attempt to bring marijuana to the public under the guise of a medical herbal solution for chronic pain is a scam, as you so well point out in the editorial.

I seriously hope that the social organizations follow your courageous leadership and sound off about the incredible damage that an open marijuana society would bring to Steamboat Springs and Routt County. Organizations like the Elks, Knights of Columbus, the Rotary and the Kiwanis clubs, for example, should follow your leadership and contact their membership urging them to vote against these marijuana centers. The local churches and the school boards also should stand up and be counted in this public debate. The school boards or school superintendents should send a letter of information to the parents of the students within their domain, clarifying the harm that this drug can do to a young person and urge them to be heard at the ballot box.

Again, thank you for your courage in taking a leadership role in voting these centers down. I hope that you will continue to be out in front during the coming debate.

Maynard Short

Phippsburg

More like this story

Scott Wedel 1 year, 7 months ago

"There also is zero tolerance for young people to participate in the alcohol world"

What alternate universe are you living in? Teenage alcohol use is rampant.

"Prohibition didn’t work, therefore banning marijuana centers won’t work. Very few of these complaining people lived prohibition or have studied the social engineering experiment that was prohibition."

So only those that lived Prohibition or studied it from a social engineering perspective are allowed to learn the lessons of Prohibition? And it does not take a Phd on Prohibition to know that Prohibition failed to stop people from drinking, taught people how to evade the law and was a huge source of revenue for organized crime.

Those parallels with Prohibition are relevant comparisons with marijuana because use is commonplace with easy availability despite it being illegal for years and numerous declarations that government is cracking down more severely this time.

The hypocrisy of the supporters of Prohibition whom publicly opposed alcohol usage while drinking alcohol at socially was also a major factor in it losing public opinion Organizations like the Elks, Knights of Columbus, the Rotary, Free Masons and the Kiwanis could publicly oppose mmj. But then they would also face the issue that many of their members use mmj. Would they purge their membership of mmj users?

We have a simple choice. Allow legal access via a highly regulated legal framework that controls mmj from seed to sales to a Colorado registered mmj patient, or return to the drug dealers that are becoming ever more violent.

Just as with Prohibition, widespread usage happens regardless. Only question is whether it will be legal regulated sources or gang related drug dealers.

heboprotagonist 1 year, 7 months ago

"..a considerable amount of courage..." ?

Really? The paper isn't beholden to a single individual in Routt county. Nobody has a subscription- the paper is funded solely by advertising and private money.

Any backlash would simply mean that Routt county citizens would go elsewhere for their news, but The Pilot wouldn't lose a dime. Advertisers certainly aren't going to pull out of the only (cough, cough, monopoly) local news source.

No, the Pilot's editorial falls in line with their conservative agenda. They wouldn't know journalistic integrity, much less courage, if they took a class on it.

And apparently the anti-mmj crowd are just too drunk to understand the comparisons to alcohol. Nobody is claiming that because alcohol is legal that so should mmj, but rather that if you ban one and not the other you move further towards a society that is already imbalanced and skewed towards power and money.

Chief Wiggum and the faux doctors don't care about protecting the citizens of Steamboat, they care about protecting their paychecks. And that is the scam we should be worried about- the one that preys on our fears of the unknown. Just think, if the police stopped wasting time writing letters to the editor and staging incompetent "undercover" raids, maybe they could bust the punk who's been tagging our valley with graffiti or they could work with city council to adopt a unified front on cyclists and motorists who abuse our streets. Instead they sit around and fume about the "dirty hippies".

If you're truly concerned about the regulation, then work to change it. If you're truly concerned about the kids, then be a parent not a lobbyist. If you think that image can be controlled or regulated then you know nothing of Rick Santorum. (Google it).

steamboatsconscience 1 year, 7 months ago

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19007826?source=pop Legalizing pot would make Colorado safer By Tony Ryan Consider this a front-line report from Colorado's War on Marijuana. As a 36-year veteran of the Denver Police Department, I'm joining many of my fellow law enforcement officials to say that the battle is being lost. Our combined efforts to stop marijuana use have not only failed, but they've actually made Colorado communities more dangerous, not less, and at a tremendous expense in lives and dollars. Unless we change strategies, drug use won't be reduced, respect for the law will continue to erode, and untold numbers of Coloradans' lives will be ruined — all at an ever-increasing cost. While elected officials are reluctant to act, Coloradans are taking the issue into their own hands, forcing much-needed change at the ballot box next year. Since Richard Nixon declared a joint federal-state-local War on Drugs in 1971, we've pursued two strategies: interdiction (seizing the drugs to choke off supply) and prosecution of users (to discourage demand). Pursuing those strategies, my fellow officers arrested 12,358 otherwise law-abiding Coloradans in 2007. Almost all these arrests, 94 percent, were for simple possession (as opposed to sale) of marijuana. Although we don't have specific figures for the fiscal cost to Colorado taxpayers, we know that nationwide, enforcing marijuana laws costs taxpayers roughly $8 billion every year. Pot prohibition adds to Americans' increasing disregard for the law, and any patrolman can tell you how widespread — and dangerous — this lack of respect has become. Just as with prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, our efforts have created a criminal class that reaps billions of dollars satisfying America's steady appetite for marijuana. Since arrests and seizures haven't worked, let's try the only approach left: restrict the possession and sale of marijuana to adults age 21 and above and set up a system to regulate and tax it, just like alcohol. A measure is likely to appear on the November 2012 ballot that would do just that, making Colorado the first state in the nation sensible enough to face the facts of marijuana prohibition and pursue a better approach. Under the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012, marijuana prohibition will be repealed: adult Coloradans will be able to purchase and possess limited amounts of marijuana for their own private use. Instead of permitting criminal gangs and foreign drug cartels to profit from street-level drug sales, this new law will enable local and state government to take in revenue, just as they do with alcohol.

steamboatsconscience 1 year, 7 months ago

I know many of my brother and sister officers would welcome the chance to end marijuana arrests and prosecutions and focus instead on what's really important: fighting crime and making our streets, neighborhoods and homes safer. Not once in all my years as a Denver police officer — from patrolman to lieutenant — did I ever meet a fellow officer who went into law enforcement to arrest people for marijuana. We can all help Colorado lead the way for a sensible drug policy by signing one of the ballot petitions that are circulating now throughout Colorado. Visit RegulateMarijuana.org.

Tony Ryan is a 36-year veteran of the Denver Police Department. He is a board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (copssaylegalizedrugs.com).

Steamboat Pilot & Today