Letters for November 18, 2010

A melee in every pot

The election was pretty much a disaster. I’m not talking about the donkeys and the elephants (I’m a Green), who are going to gridlock in short order and muck things up.

It is, instead, the failure of Proposition 19 in California that is discouraging.

I don’t care about pot. People have been getting high as long as there have been people and will as long as there are. Instead, sadly, we will not look at industrial hemp for another election cycle.

Locally grown hemp will provide fibers for clothing. We don’t make clothing here anymore. Your Levis weren’t made here.

Local fibers will provide local cloth for locally made clothing.

And create jobs. And help stop our slide into the certain abyss.

No healthy oils for both consumption and biodiesel. No paper, no chemicals for industry, no biofuels, no fast soil-improving-draught-tolerant biomass.

No industry. Especially no local industry. We’re so screwed.

Ouch.

Craig Bergland
Reno

Holistic apps

Re “Diamond mind” (Filet of Soul, date. Oct. 28):

I am interested in your Filet of Soul idea because I’ve been studying the human immune system and its autoimmune disorders for the last two years. Seems that the mind-body-spirit idea thought of centuries ago by the beginners of health care is coming back into the picture of today’s health concerns. Western medicine wandered away from this approach a couple hundred years ago when it started using painkillers as a sort of cure all for the body and chose to leave spirit to the churches. The mind, a go between, has a big part to play in our health by joining all three when possible. Our minds have more power than most people realize. This is my opinion, but I don’t believe I’m alone here. We just have to make the connections. I’m 74 and deal with several autoimmune disorders. The fact of knowing something about them—but realizing the medical world doesn’t have a way of curing, but several ways of trying this and that—gives me comfort to a point and [encourages me to] stop putting drugs into my body as a testing ground that quite possibly might compromise my immune system further. I would enjoy reading anything you might come up with in regards to the mind-body-spirit connection.

Jack Kunce
Reno

The legislature should act

Re “Pot. It does an economy good.” (View from the Fray, Nov. 11):

Deidre Pike better get in line; Colorado is going to be the first state to re-legalize cannabis (marijuana) in 2012. The race is on, and if I were a gambling man, I’d bet on Colorado to win by an hour. Really though, good luck, Nevada. California, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts and some others have indicated interest in attempting to legalize the relatively safe, God-given plant cannabis in 2012. The competitive American nature in us making it a race seems only natural, and it may end cannabis prohibition that much sooner. The race is on; see you at the finish line.

Stan White
Dillon, Colo.

Performance biased

Re “An incomplete truth” (Guest comment, Nov. 11):

Everyone is so quick to start pointing fingers and playing the blame game. I have four kids in school, and this is a huge concern for my wife and me. We hear one side that says it’s the teachers and the unions, then we hear another side that says it’s the parents and funding. One thing is for sure, we are in trouble as a country. The numbers tell the truth. If you don’t believe it’s the teachers’ responsibility to do better, then where are the real solutions? Who are the ones getting paid to do the job of teaching? I believe the answer is simple. If you’re paid to do a job, and the results of your work are less than satisfactory, you lose your job, and someone else gets hired to do the job you did not do, and this cycle continues until some success is achieved. The same should be for teachers. Period.

John Talsma
Prineville, Ore.

Teach your children

Re “KISS and make up (your mind)” (Reviled & Revered, Nov. 11):

Teachers in Nevada start at $27,957, just below Mississippi at $28,200. John Barrette thinks the new governor’s first priority should be to keep a lid on such profligate spending. Better yet, he should divert education funds to new charter schools and cut voucher checks to subsidize private school tuition. Great plan, unless you actually care about the quality of public education in Nevada.

Rich Dunn
Carson City

Read it and weep

Re “Pot. It does an economy good.” (View from the Fray, Nov. 11):

The drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. In 2009, there were 858,405 marijuana arrests in the United States, almost 90 percent for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The end result of this ongoing culture war is not necessarily lower rates of use.

The United States has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. Decriminalization is a long overdue step in the right direction. Taxing and regulating marijuana would render the drug war obsolete. As long as organized crime controls distribution, marijuana consumers will come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. This “gateway” is a direct result of marijuana prohibition.

United Nations drug stats: www.unodc.org

Comparative analysis of U.S. vs. Dutch rates of drug use: www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm

Marijuana arrest stats: www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

Robert Sharpe
Common Sense for Drug Policy
Washington, D.C.

Financial remedies

While the nation was focused on the mid-term elections, the Federal Reserve, under the leadership of that great financial wizard Ben Bernanke, injected an additional $600 billion into the “system” in hopes of “helping” the economy and strengthening the dollar or what’s left of it.

Almost immediately the price of gas in my home state of Nevada rose by more than 10 cents a gallon. The price of gold also went up. Why? The answer is simple: The $600 billion was printed on worthless paper, and the market is adjusting accordingly.

One may also note that our fearless leader, Barack Obama, accomplished nothing on his recent junket, at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer, of course.

Now the federal government and the geniuses at the Federal Reserve insist that this was not a tax, but in reality the pockets of the citizens have been picked once again by our “caring” officials. Expect the prices of basic items like food, milk and butter to rise soon too.

As the smoke clears, all those mirrors that the government has used for decades have been shattered. Even the ignorant masses are beginning to see that neither the Democrats nor their partners in crime, the Republicans, have any idea how to solve the economic crises they have caused. The proof is that if they knew what to do they would have done it already, and they haven’t!

Once again, the American people have been taken advantage of by that collection of failed lawyers and other scoundrels in Washington.

The good news is that the common folk are catching on, and sooner or later they will catch up to these politicians and then, watch out!

Bruce Feher
Las Vegas