Opinion articles provide independent perspectives on key community issues, separate from our newsroom reporting.

Letters to the Editor

Letter: Government using pretzeled logic over pot

Our local governments keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result in regards to Cannabis.

Hemp (marijuana) has been around from the beginning of time, and guess what? It is not going away, legal or illegal.

Remember the recent multi-million dollar pot bust in Benton City? Our focus should be on meth, heroin and drugs like hydrocodone, vicodin and Xanax.

How about alcohol and tobacco? Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. This didn’t work in 1920 for alcohol and will not work for marijuana now.

Initiative 502 legalized marijuana use for adults. Why are we in the year 2017 wasting our time and spinning our wheels on this issue? Tax it and use the money to fight the meth and pill epidemic.

Mike Draper, Richland

This story was originally published August 15, 2017 at 1:48 PM with the headline "Letter: Government using pretzeled logic over pot."

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