Dear FRONTLINE,

The emerging debate over medical marijuana, needle exchange programs and harm reduction strategies draws my mind back to the founding fathers and their founding documents. The words, “certain unalienable Rights…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” roll around in my mind constantly.

I wonder what Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, two hemp farmers themselves, would make of an American government which sought to control so closely the corporal and spiritual lives of its citizens to the extent that we find today.

I think a lot about a judicial phrase I’ve sometimes heard, “unenumerated rights”. I wonder how the Bill of Rights would read if its writers could have conceived of a future government which could project its jurisdiction into the very bodies of its citizens.

The drug war is war of hate. When you ask why some drugs with the potential for being abused are legal and others are not, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that prejudice alone decides this question.

Larry Stevens
Springfield, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

Marijuana use isn't a bad thing if the user doesn't abuse the drug, and doesn't hurt anyone physically or mentally by using it. Society is being more informed and in many cases it's being more accepted. I go to highschool and I know most of the freshman class. Just for an estamate I would say that 4/7 of my class has at least tried it. Most people at my school are very educated about it. The focus should be taken off this issue and moved to more important issues.

Michael Lindon
Highland park, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

I firmly believe that marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized. I know plenty of creative, intelligent, socially acceptable, brilliant, wonderful people who smoke marijuana. The fact of the matter is that legal drugs tobacco, alcohol cause quite a bit of death yearly and marijuana is basically harmless.

Legalize it. Grow it. Smoke it.

Steve

Steve Klingsporn

Dear FRONTLINE,

I think the War on Drugs is an attempt to legislate morals. The laws enforce lies that enable economic monopolies and breed deceit within and without the law. I think Mandatory minimums are the reason there's no room in the prisons for violent criminals. I hope to see more people speak out against this in the future.

Pam Ozment

Dear FRONTLINE,

I would be interested in seeing a study showing the cost of alcohol misuse/abuse as opposed to marijuana abuse. From what I have observed it seems that alcohol costs our world much more in lives lost, injuries, property damage, etc. I have never known any one to get high on pot and then beat up their

wife or girlfriend. But I've seen alcohol cause such behavior many times. I've seldom have read of a person getting high on pot and then getting behind the wheel of a car and killing someone. But I've often read of alcohol-related traffic fatalities. In my opinion our legislators chose to make the wrong drug illegal. Actually I'm not sure I can agree with any drug being illegal. I feel people should have the right to choose what they do with their own bodies. I don't feel drug use of any kind should be a crime unless it causes physical harm to another person or damage to property. I believe we certainly need to educate our children better and be good role models and hopefully they will be able to make responsible decisions as to the use of drugs.

Glen Cimaglia
Boardman, OH

Dear FRONTLINE,

I've always followed the Marijuana arguments, and I've never heard substative arguments to support legalization of Marijuana. Medical Use of marijuana is a consideration, but must be researched.

Decriminalization is certainly an option, and I would support a flexible application of marijuana laws, but I would also support a strict sentencing policy for those who are arrested for trafficing in large volumes of marijuana for untaxale sale.

The most complicated issue, and the reason I oppose regulation of marijuana is the simple fact that marijuana cannot be regulated.. it's too easy to produce.

Frank Mattison

Dear FRONTLINE,

I enjoyed the dicussion on the topic of marijuana. Many times it has struck me odd that our laws are so strict on something that has so little effect on others. Isn't our society based on freedom of the individual so long as that freedom does not encroach on others freedom? Choice. It is the ability to choose... not be chosen for. Where do we draw that line?

Trey Dempsey
Little Rock, AR

Dear FRONTLINE,

Legalize Marijana-Tax Me

Hemp has many more uses than just the recreatioinal smoking of it. It can be made into a very strong fiber for makeing clothes that not only last longer than cotton but are also more comfortable.

Adrian Greenbaum
Stow, MA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am so angry right now, it is hard to type.

I was amazed by the two Warsaw Police officers passing on information that the

kids had told them about alleged marijuana

abuse among their relatives. My first thought

was George's Orwell's 1984, whose government

rewarded the children for spying on the

parents for crimes against the state. Do

these two officers really think they are

playing on a level playing field with 9 year

old kids? When they said they didn't solicit

the advice, who do they think their audience

is? These are kids enamored by an adult treating them like an equal, with a cool uniform and sidearm. Are these two officers that naive?

Come on wise up, get the police officers out of the classroom and on the street. Let a teacher guide the teaching with no fear of an educational program becoming the guise for a sting operation.

Neil Fitzsimons
Chicago, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am very happy to see that the federal government has manditory limits with the marijuana laws. I only wish we, Americans, could accept having tougher laws for many more things. I believe that many judges may not like the laws only because they no longer have the control they so much desire.

John Janovick
DeKalb, IL 60115

Dear FRONTLINE,

I viewed your show on marijuana, and I must say that I am a little disappointed. The title of the show, "Marijuana Decriminalization" lead me to believe that I would actually be viewing a show that revealed the non-threatening aspects of the drug. I myself have smoked marijuana for the past five years of my life, and I must say that it has done everything but hurt me. I have always been a very hyper person, and marijuana was the first thing that ever brought me down to reality. When I started using marijuana, I began to make the honor roll in high school, I started to think a lot more rationally, but I never committed an unforgivable crime against an innocent induvidial. I have never tried to push my beliefs on anyone, I have never tried to push drugs onto anyone, and I have never publicly sensationalized the benefits of marijuana. But I have been silent for too long. I believe that marijuana is a good thing. It opens your mind to different worlds. I am not talking about trippy, crazy worlds that send your mind into a reeling frenzy of insanity and halluciantions. In my case, marijuana made me grow up. I began to take things a lot more seriously than I had before, because marijuana makes me THINK. When smoking marijuana, I find myself thinking more about the things around me, and the reasons that these things are happening.

But that is besides the point. All I want is for you, or for anyone, to show me the statistics on how marijuana kills, or how marijuana ruins peoples lives, BESIDES the jail time that the state and federal goverment imposes upon users, buyers, and sellers of marijuana. If the goverment didn't have such laws, what would be the real risks of growing your own marijuana? Would it be cancer? No, I think that we can leave that to the cigarette manufacturers. Is it the risk that people could get hurt on the job while using marijuana? Well, I believe that if it was regulated, such as alcohol, there wouldn't be as much of a problem. I realize that there are a few bad seeds in every bunch, but why should you deprive the majority of good hard working citizens, in favor of marijuana, to accomadate I'm not sure that is spelled right the few wrong doers in the crowd? Obviously, it's just not fair.

Jennifer Hauff
Jacksonville, FL

Dear FRONTLINE,

Mandatory minimums for people who grow marijauna are ridiculous. To lock up these individuals without judging each case on an individual basis is not using common sense or trusting the judges in these cases to make the proper decision. These individuals would be serving our society much better if they were free to work and pay taxes. By locking up individual growers we are overcrowding our prison systems and putting a burden on our taxpayers. A cost to benefit analysis should be used in deciding if growing marijuana should be punishable by doing time.

Brian Doyle
Columbus, OH

Dear FRONTLINE,

I think the marijuana laws against citizens are an outrage. I can't believe that so many people are sent to jail for mandatory sentences with no chance for parole for cultivation of marijuana, when violent criminals are constantly re-released into our society.

Certainly, there should be laws in place to punish serious and flagrant violations, and to protect children from drug pushers, but what I witnessed on your program was shocking. I can't imagine how anyone can justify separating children from their parents during the most important and formative years of their lives, simply because the parents were cultivating a plant!

Grow up America! Whether we like it or not, marijuana is a part of our society, and it always will be.

Thank you for presenting this dillemma in an unbiased manner.

Wayne Merchant

Dear FRONTLINE,

I find it severly disturbing that we incarcerate non-violent first time marijuana offenders without possibility of parole and allow dangerous criminals i.e. rapists, murderers, sexual predators and the like to walk the streets. It's an outrage!! It has been my long experience that pot is a relatively benign drug with few apparent lasting side effects. However, as with any drug, users must recognize that you have a tiger by the tail and either you control it or it controls you. We should legalize and tax the growing and use of marijuana. However, given our society's seemingly growing penchant to protect us from ourselves e.g the anti tobacco hysteria that is probably merely a "pipe dream." Whatever happened to personal choice and its corollary personal responsibility in this country?

Mark
Ft. Myers, FL

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your report was reasoned and compassionate, a far cry from the attitudes towards marijuana in America.

I noted the irony of the scene of a prisoner's hand, reaching through bars and holding a burning cigarette. Here is a man imprisoned for sales of a drug no more dangerous and less addictive than nicotine--a drug that kills millions--allowed to indulge his addiction in prison. When will we have mandatory minimum sentences for murder, much less sales of these "drugs?"

I would'nt encourage or allow minors to use marijuana any more than alcohol, cigarettes or caffeine. Developing individuals are extremely susceptible to any such influences that alter the mind and every privelege requires a degree of maturity. But use of pot by responsible adults is no more fraught with danger than these drugs. Yet in the minds of Americans the dangers in the hands of youth makes marijuana "evil." There seems to be such hysteria that there is a general incapacity to use the same standards when it involves similar or even worse substances when they are supported by the establishment.

Please do not use my name. The stigma and hysteria connected with this benign pleasure make it a huge risk.