Letters

Three things

Could we ask our state legislators to do three things regarding recreational drugs?

One would be to take some action against the largest recreational drugs. What’s to stop our state from declaring that alcohol, tobacco (and marijuana?) are semi-legal drug s— legal enough to be sold in restricted circumstances, but not legal enough to be advertised? Tobacco kills 420,000 Americans each year, and alcohol is the number one drug related to crimes of violence, including violent sexual predations, and produces about half the workload for local law enforcement. And we allow these drugs to be advertised?

Number two and number three have to do with prescription drugs that get diverted to recreational use.

Number two, bump up against the federal government, hard! Pass a bill that would, at the state level, restore the Harrison anti-narcotics act of 1914. While it prohibited narcotics, it exempted doctors, so they could continue to prescribe for their patients.

Unfortunately, in 1919, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Treasury Department, giving the government the legal power to insert itself between doctor and patient, forcing the addict out of the flat retail structure of the doctor’s office, into the “pyramidal selling” retail structure of the black market.

As a result, new addictions and related crimes are perhaps twelve times higher than they would be with the original intent of the Harrison act. In other words, we could prevent about 90 per cent of new drug addictions and related crime if we were to take the addict out of the pyramidal selling market, and put him or her back into the flat retail structure of the doctor’s office.

Number three. Well, I’m not sure about number three. It would be nice to reduce the quantity of prescription drugs that’s available for kids to snatch. The pharmaceutical industry’s new behavior of advertising directly to the consumer has increased the amount of prescription drugs on the night stand. Writing a bill similar to the Harrison anti-narcotics act for today’s most troubling prescription drugs would stop the advertising, but would it stop many kids from swiping their parents drugs?

If such a bill were to be drafted, the exemption for doctors to continue to prescribe for their patients would have to be drawn with such clarity that the U.S. Supreme Court could not sabotage this act.

There’s a thing that localities can do, independently of state and federal governments. We can reduce the availability of left-over prescription drugs for kids to get into. We can create more drop boxes like the one in the lobby of the Pullman Police Department, where you can drop off your old prescription drugs. They’ll dispose of them in the proper way.

Wiley Hollingsworth,

Pullman

Jury duty scam

As Whitman County District Court Judge, I want to alert our residents to jury duty scams that are becoming more prevalent across the country and around Washington. We greatly value our citizens willing to serve on jury duty and are very concerned that you might become victims of a scam artist out to take your money, and using the name of the court to do so.

Please be aware that citizens in several Washington counties as well as around the country have lost large sums of money. Here is how it usually happens: an individual calls or e-malls and claims that you have missed jury duty. They indicate, as a result, a warrant has been issued for your arrest and/or that the Sheriff is en-route to arrest you, and demand payment, a credit card number, or a social security number for failure to appear for jury duty.

Whitman County courts .will never ask for payment over the phone or by e-mail. Court officials will also never ask for you to purchase a pre-paid card, provide cash or a check to pay for failure to appear for jury duty.

Never give out personal information by phone or e-mail. Please report any suspicious activity of this kind to your local law enforcement agency.

If you have questions about jury duty or a court appearance, please call Whitman County District Court at (509) 397-6260.

Douglas Robinson,

Judge

Whitman County District Court

Patagonia ad

I couldn’t let this ad go without comment. In my opinion, our friends from Ventura, California, want us to contact our Senators Cantwell and Murray about our Pacific Northwest dams on the Snake River. I think we should, and remind them of the water lifeline these Dams provide. Taking advice from those who purchase our excess electricity, want to divert water from the Northwest to their reservoirs, and force California sea lions to travel thousands of miles to the Columbia River to feed on our ocean returning salmon and steelhead because they obviously can’t find fish locally, would be a great idea.

We have had record fish runs reported by this paper numerous times over the past several years. The Fish and Wildlife departments are allowing fishing seasons that have been closed for years. Returning fish have been reported as more than before the dam construction in some years.

Now let’s talk about drought! Water reserves held by the dams are priceless. Used for shipping, agriculture, fire fighting and supporting the Northwest’s economy in general, having a system installed to provide control of water reserves puts our region far ahead of those who don’t.

Those of you 70,000 all over the world who signed a petition to President Obama don’t live here, don’t know the real economic-impact, and don’t care! Patagonia bragging about getting Washington dams removed makes me wonder of the real intent. If Patagonia really wants to help returning fish, they need to work on keeping the sea lions from feeding on the around 20,000 fish that don’t even make it to the dams.

In a quick recap: We have water reserves, They Don’t! We have fish, They Don’t! We have Electricity, They Want! We have water for agriculture, They Don’t! But we do have their sea lions!

Please call Senators Cantwell 206-220-6400 and Murray 206-553-5545 and let them know what you think.

Tom Morris,

Spokane Valley