JOYCE NALEPKA
March 26, 2009 7:03 AM

Dear President Obama, I, like many parents and grandparents have been volunteer drug prevention advocates for over 25 years. We are VERY concerned that you have removed the Office of National Drug Control Policy from its long fought for position on the Cabinet. This sent a chilling message to parents and children that the issue is not important. We urge you to reestablish this place of honor. I'm sure Vice President Biden understands our concern. It was in 1980 that Senator Biden and former Senator Charles Mathias co-sponsored hearings for us on the dangers of marijuana use and later, in Baltimore they held hearings in Baltimore to help us closed drug paraphernalia shops nationwide. We've closed those drug paraphernalia shops nationwide, held off efforts to legalize marijuana and other drugs and have a strong national network with others including police, service organizations such as the Elks, Lions, General Federation of Women's Clubs, National Narcotics Officers Association and many more, including thousands who have lost their sons and daughters to drug overdose. Never have these parents dreamed their children would be drug involved. Then, along comes a drug legalization movement that infiltrated the media, our legislatures, schools and every possible venue you can imagine that trivialized drug use and kids began to believe it couldn't hurt them. We urge you and First Lady Obama to speak out against drug use at all levels and help us inform children that we love them and don't want to lose them. Kids will listen to the truth. Your children are young and innocent and protected now and, therefore, you and Mrs. Obama may not even believe that drugs would ever be a part of their lives. We'd like to ensure that to be true. Unfortunately, the very legalizers we've been trying to stop have said, "We want a completely open market with no age controls or street controls." The average age for beginning use is now 11 - 12. We ask that you share this message with First Lady Obama. It is generally the Moms who initiate these conversations. This issue touches every family in our country one way or another. We desperately need your help. If you go to www.ourwall.org, you will quickly realize the need for awareness. This is the website of a family who lost a member to drug overdose. They started a word-of-mouth campaign to list overdose deaths. Very quickly, they gathered 850 names. The youngest is 14. Joyce Nalepka Silver Spring, MD 20902 301-681-7861

SunflowerPipes
March 31, 2009 12:40 AM

I respect Obama he is a talented politician, President Obama seems to posse’s insightful, reasonable judgment on many issues, although in the case of marijuana prohibition laws I find Obama’s choice to answer with mocking humor to be lacking.  Smoking marijuana is an easy thing to laugh about, it seems there is something about being stoned that brings a smile to people’s faces, however marijuana prohibition is not a joke. We should not be making jokes as millions of Americans are arrested for being caught on the wrong side of moral politicking, we should not laugh as we spend over 30 billion dollars a year going after Americans for smoking weed, we should not giggle and poke fun as we watch billions of dollars in tax revenue slip through our fingers each year, and should we not be jolly as thousands of people are murdered by cartels profiting from America’s moral hypocrisy. I believe there are profound latent consequences in prohibition that are not even factored in to our assessments of the effects of illegality, such as how we view the rule of law and the role of law enforcement in the community, the divisiveness between users and non users, the stigma of mental shock of incarceration. I say pot prohibition is no joke it has real costs paid for in real lives.  Freedom is achieved in a country by placing responsibility in the hands of the citizen and not by the state legally enforcing morality.

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