Letters for April 28, 2005

Pretty much the same
Re “Portraits of teens” (Cover story, April 7):

The brevity of focus on teens in your Teen Issue was a disappointment. My response to what I read follows: Teens today are much the same as past generations. There is just more media focus on teens today. The exception is the wealth of information available, and the easy access to that information. As a group, teens still have the good, the bad and everything in between. High academic achievers, the athletes and those with an artistic flair are still the primary groups where most future leaders spring. Bullies, thugs, criminals, sluts, wimps, whiners, drug addicts, sexual deviants, and so on still fill the mix. That’s pretty much a microcosm of the adult world. The noticeable difference is the teens appear more physically fit.

If you see yourself as a member of the ugly group, you have time to redirect your agenda to change for the better. Don’t continue being stupid, change. Drugs have overtaken alcohol as the preferred mind-altering choice, although both are abundantly available.

Paul Woodward
Reno

Pot for everyone
Re “All journalism is biased” and “Pot is a gift from God” (Letters, April 14):

There are two things I’d like to state about these letters: Yep, all journalism is biased and hence, it’s no surprise that there has been very little reporting of the fact that a Marijuana Regulation Initiative is set to be on Nevada’s 2006 ballot. That’s right, folks, Nevada will be among the first (simultaneous with Alaska) to allow its citizens to vote to “remove all penalties for marijuana use by adults aged 21 and older, as well as create a system for the legal cultivation, distribution and sale of marijuana to adults. It’s about time, but how much news of this milestone have you heard?

Marijuana should be legal for all adults—with reasonable restrictions and penalties for misuse similar to alcohol—and not just for those deemed to have a valid medical use by a doctor. As Stan White pointed out, it was God who created pot; doctors and pharmaceutical companies deserve no credit. Hence, when the time comes in 2006, I will vote for the measure if the system for legal cultivation, distribution and sale of marijuana to adults is open to all. I will vote against it if not.

B.P. Auclair
Reno

Cut the tax cut
Conservatives seem hellbent on blaming runaway domestic spending for the massive federal deficit. The Republicans, from George Bush on down, seem determined to reduce the deficit by chopping away at domestic programs. In fact, domestic entitlement and discretionary programs are not even keeping pace with inflation. Closer analysis shows that the deficit results from three items: the war in Iraq, the growth in homeland security costs, and the Bush tax cuts that principally benefit those making more than $400,000 a year. There is no talk in Congress of decreasing expenditures for either the war or national security. The solution to reducing the deficit is not in cutting domestic programs, but in repealing the Bush tax cut, which is costing our nation the equivalent of the Iraq war every year.

Alan E. Schenker
Reno

Unequal treatment for bike riders
Re “Reno 911: Outlaw bicyclist bust” (View from the fray, April 7):

I really wish the best for Jordan Lubek in his fight against his citations, and suggest more folks take one day a month to go on a bicycle ride and enjoy our area.

There are already too many drivers out there that have no business behind the wheel of a vehicle. As for those bicycle cops downtown, they need to address their behavior. Their swerving in and out of traffic, riding up one-way streets in no particular hurry and, in one case, as I was coming out of the Sands, riding down Fourth Street with no hands on the handle bars. Here in Sparks, you can and will get ticketed for riding on sidewalks.

Bart Nichols
Sparks

Inhumane treatment
Re “A society of sheep” (Right Hook, April 7):

It is not about Terri Schiavo, pro-life, anti-abortion, politics, ethics or the opinion of the masses and politicians. It is about the treatment of people.

At 20, I had the misfortune to watch my mother die after a 16-year battle with multiple sclerosis and the torture it inflicts. Weighing less than 60 pounds with bone-deep bedsores, she passed in great pain.

I had the misfortune, when I was 42 and as legal guardian to my comatose father, to decide not to treat my dad for pneumonia again. He passed five days later after enduring a 105-degree fever.

At 44, I was allowed to put my suffering 16-year-old dog, Muppet, to sleep due to kidney failure.

The reality is that we are allowed to treat our animals with greater compassion than we are allowed to treat our loved ones.

Jerry Newcomer
Reno

Correction

Re “Family secrets” (Cover story, April 14):

In “Family secrets,” we incorrectly stated, “Five states have opened adoption records to adult adoptees: Arizona, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina and Washington.” The correct states are Oregon, Delaware, Tennessee, New Hampshire and Alabama.