Gates Must Heed Voters’ Decision

Sheriff Brad Gates insults my intelligence and the intelligence of the electorate (“Official to Keep Fighting New Marijuana Law,” Dec. 2).

We voted to allow compassionate use of marijuana for people who are sick. The county is in a financial crunch, and we cannot afford to waste precious taxpayer dollars on the pursuit of alleged abusers of the new marijuana law. Legislators are working to clarify the ambiguities in the law.

Gates should use his time and our limited resources to protect us from murderers, rapists and other felons rather than using this politically motivated charade to threaten doctors and abuse the legal rights of individuals who are fighting for their lives or trying to function with an illness.

LISA DAVID

Orange

* Gates doesn’t seem to get the voters’ message. They want medical marijuana, and they don’t want to pay for more prisons.

More people every day are realizing that if marijuana were totally legal, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars could be saved, not only in policing but in prison expenses. Marijuana, like alcohol and cigarettes, is a recreational drug, but far less dangerous.

Gates [should] tell us how many people are in prison for selling marijuana, growing marijuana and smoking marijuana.

The marijuana laws are useless, and sooner or later the people will realize it.

Most of us know a good gardener. Some gardeners smoke pot. The idea that people will grow it and sell it is absurd. If people could grow it, there would be more than enough to go around--free, gratis!

No deaths are attributed to smoking marijuana in national health statistics, but hundreds of thousands of deaths come from alcohol and cigarettes.

The belief that marijuana leads to hard drug use is another “wives’ tale” that Gates perpetuates.

Gates just doesn’t get the message. Many citizens do not want the police (that is, the sheriff and prison system) to be a growth industry.

ROGER CARTER

Laguna Beach