Dear Mr. XXXXXX,
I’m sure you receive a lot of boilerplate letters that are automatically sent by web sites for various people invested in a cause. However, this is a hand written letter that’s not been automatically generated. I was very disappointed that you did not vote for the More Act for the decriminalization of marijuana. Your excuses, such as not having provisions of preventing marijuana shops 1000 ft away from schools could have been addressed by local, county, city, and state judiciaries very easily, just as liquor and beer stores are regulated.
I realize you and I are of a different generation. You grew up in an age when marijuana was constantly demonized and you were told you were a drug addict and a bad person if you used marijuana. Well, Mr. XXXXXX, it’s time for that this “Reefer Madness” mentality to end. I was introduced to marijuana in my high school, where it’s use was rampant and considered by most of the other pupils as “not a big deal”.
With marijuana still on the DEA’s Schedule I list it cannot be studied by any university, private company, or any other organization without the DEA’s explicit approval and the marijuana must be provided by the DEA, so other strains of marijuana, such as what is being sold and used in the states that have legalized marijuana, we can’t learn anything about this compound – the positive or negative effects, it’s potential benefits or detriments to society, of the marijuana with this kind of restriction. The only legitimate scientific studies on marijuana come from overseas universities who have been granted access to this compound to study and learn about it’s effects. As you may or may not be aware, marijuana has been shown to be beneficial to patients suffering from ailments such as chronic pain to those stricken with cancer. Source: Examine.com – Cannabis Research. “There appears to be an acute analgesic effect of Δ9THC when administered either as capsules or as inhaled. This has been most tested in the capsaicin model for neuropathic pain. Notably, one study has indicated that cannabis may have a biphasic effect on pain, with medium doses causing pain relief and higher doses actually increasing the perception of pain.” by Kamal Patel. March 8th, 2021. https://examine.com/supplements/cannabis/research/#neurology_analgesia & Examine.com (same source, article, & author) “Cannabis may inhibit the growth and spread of cancers through several mechanisms: inducing the cells to die, reducing tumors' blood supply, and slowing their spread.” https://examine.com/supplements/cannabis/research/#interactions-with-cancer-metabolism
Secondly, the United States of America has the highest prison population in the western world. Many of these charges stem from simple drug possession or intent to distribute laws and mandatory minimum sentences set by the federal government that gives no discretion to the judges to change sentencing based on the circumstances of the case.
https://ibb.co/9vDKRyp
“According to a 2014 Human Rights Watch report, "tough-on-crime" laws adopted since the 1980s have filled U.S. prisons with mostly nonviolent offenders. However, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that, as of the end of 2015, 54% of state prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year were serving time for a violent offense. 15% of state prisoners at year-end 2015 had been convicted of a drug offense as their most serious infraction. In comparison, 47% of federal prisoners serving time in September 2016 (the most recent date for which data are available) were convicted of a drug offense” Source:
Nation Behind Bars: A Human Rights Solution. Human Rights Watch, May 2014. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/2014_US_Nation_Behind_Bars_0.pdf & Bureau of Justice Statistics (2018): "Prisoners in 2016 https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p16_sum.pdf
This is a shameful look at the reality of life in America in the 21st century where an opioid epidemic, as well as a meth epidemic are ravaging the country. The people who are abusing these drugs are mentally ill and need to be given access to rehabilitation facilities, mental health counselors, and other resources to try and better their lives. So, this isn’t just about marijuana. It’s time to reform our drug laws. It’s been 50 years since President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs, and it has been an absolute failure. “ In 2015, the Drug Policy Alliance, [...], estimated that the United States spends $51 billion annually on these initiatives, and in 2021, after 50 years of the drug war, others have estimated that the US has spent a cumulative $1 trillion on it.” Source: "Drug War Statistics". Drug Policy Alliance. http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-war-statistics
Source: Mann, Brian (June 17, 2021). "After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, 'What Good Is It Doing For Us?'". NPR. The campaign — which by some estimates cost more than $1 trillion — also exacerbated racial divisions and infringed on civil liberties in ways that transformed American society. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us
Yet, regardless of our continual War on Drugs continues to burn through money that could be better spent improving our countries infrastructure, public schools, programs for WIC, loans for small business, helping out veterans coming home and countless other beneficial improvements to our countries citizens, drugs are still as easy to get as a bottle of Coca Cola at the local convenience store – and that is no exaggeration. According to the CDC, “ Nearly 841,000 people have died since 1999 from a drug overdose. In 2019, 70,630 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States. The age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths increased by over 4% from 2018 (20.7 per 100,000) to 2019 (21.6 per 100,000).” Source: Drug Overdose Deaths – CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/index.html
As you well know, we tried prohibition against alcohol in the 1920s, yet the population ignored these laws en mass and continued to drink with reckless abandon. Finally, we realized that this ‘social experiment’ had utterly failed miserably and alcohol was decriminalized. This is the same thing that is going on with marijuana right now. People in all states of the Union, regardless of whether or not marijuana is legal in their state continue to access and use this compound, and as we consider this, we have to keep in mind the following facts: “Most medical experts agree that while marijuana can have negative health consequences, it’s unlikely to cause death. The psychoactive effects of marijuana can be concerning, but not necessarily harmful.
Dr. Edward J. Newton, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Southern California and an expert in drug overdose, said that while marijuana has “a good safety record” from an overdose perspective, there are other risks involved with use.”
Source: Healthline.com Can Marijuana Kill You? by Gigen Mammoser Aug, 2nd, 2019. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/can-marijuana-kill-you
And although there are risk factors, such as driving while intoxicated, I’m sure our private sector can come up with some sort of utility or device to determine if a driver is intoxicated on marijuana and go through the same steps we use for individuals who drive impaired while drinking. But, regardless, marijuana is not a drug that is killing people. No one is overdosing on marijuana.
When we look at states that have legalized marijuana, it is an absolute boon to the economy. Consider this information from Forbes: “In January 2021, marijuana sales continued to set records in the state, reaching $187.5 million. During the last six years, the Centennial State has collected over $1.6 billion - that's just at the state level - in marijuana taxes and fee revenues.” Source: Forbes, “The Success Of Colorado’s Marijuana Tax Dollars” by Robert Hoban. May 23, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthoban/2021/05/23/the-success-of-colorados-marijuana-tax-dollars/
Now, you might think I’m a crackpot for advocating for an end on the War on Drugs, but I’d like to share my personal experience with you. I myself got caught up in the opioid epidemic in the early 2000s after 9/11, and the constant news from the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, constant terrorist bombings, such as the Madrid train bombing, and the 7/7 2005 attack on our ally, England. It felt like the whole world was going crazy and I began to abuse opioid drugs to self medicate a mental illness of depression I was having. I got addicted so quickly, I didn’t even know it happened. When you’re an addict, you need that drug like you need food, water and oxygen – and if you don’t get it, you become very sick. I stayed this way off and on for the next 20 years. In that time I was still able to be a somewhat functioning member of society. I received my Associates Degree from Collin College during this time, for example. Finally in 2018, I decided I had had enough of drug abuse and got treatment for mysef by seeing a psychiatrist and psychotherapist and am feeling so much better in my life now.
I realize the common response from someone in this predicament like myself should feel ashamed for what I did. However, I believe strongly in the Mental Health Awareness movement and I realize I was mentally ill when I was performing these actions and I have to learn to love and forgive myself for those actions that wasted so many years of my life. Luckily, during this time I was not caught by law enforcement for my actions. But, as the saying goes “For the grace of God go I…”, I feel like I need to advocate for these people who are suffering as a result of a mental illness. They need to be sent to a treatment center, not incarcerated with violent offenders, prison gangs, and other criminals.
So, Mr. XXXXXX, I will try to keep this letter short as I’m sure you have much business to attend to with your other duties to our country. But, I will say in closing, please keep this letter in mind the next time legislation regarding marijuana or other drugs come up. You don’t have to follow the party line and vote against it, but you can be the maverick, like the late Senator John McCain and show your constituents and the country that it’s time for change in America in the 21st Century. In our system of representative government, as stipulated by the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, you are my voice in government, so I felt obligated to write this letter to you because I feel very passionately about this issue and I wanted to share these facts and my personal story with you. So, in this new century it’s time for reform. It’s time to end mandatory minimums, it’s time to remove marijuana off the DEA’s Schedule I list, and it’s time to help the mentally ill drug addicts in our country, in our state and in our community.
As I can attest, you can be a drug addict but you are able to hide it from friends, family, neighbors and others. Recently, we found out a neighbor of mine overdosed on an opioid drug, and no one in the neighborhood suspected he could be an addict because he seemed like such a normal guy.
So, whether this means building more state funded treatment centers, more psychiatric wards, more police training to deal with the mentally ill, having a cultural shift where the mentally ill aren’t disenfranchised, mocked, or ignored -- or all of the above, it’s time for change.
Finally, in closing I want to thank you for your service to our country. Even though we may have a difference in opinion, I hope my letter might make you change your mind or allow you to investigate further for yourself what I have presented. I also want to wish you and your family a Happy upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely
YYYYYYYYY
