Letters to the Editor, Opinions

Letters to the Editor

ASSA went wrong way with protest

I am a student at Cal State Long Beach, and am half white (Irish) and half African American. I was appalled at what I saw on the front page of the Daily Forty-Niner on Wednesday, Feb. 25.

Claiming that the California State University system is racist because of low black enrollment at CSULB — with no percentages included except the ones from CSULB — is absolutely ludicrous.

If you provide low black enrollment as proof the CSU system is racist, let’s also consider other factors.

College is expensive. Families of all races have difficulties paying for school and many cannot afford it. I am working two jobs to pay for school. Another thing to consider is that black students are going to other colleges.

For some black teenagers, going to school out-of-state, or attending a black college, is more desirable. A very big factor to low enrollment, I feel, is that students aren’t motivated. Preparing for college takes a lot of time, planning and inspiration.

Perhaps instead of wasting money on T-shirts that read “Blackout 2009,” the Africana Studies Student Association could have rented a bus and toured local high schools to talk to young black students about what a wonderful thing a college education is.

I feel the ASSA turned this into a very negative ordeal. You have made the campus aware of a group of negative people, rather than a strong unit. Instead of blaming the CSU system — which is not at fault — the black student body should band together to promote enrollment in a positive way.

Others might view this as CSULB having racial issues and decide that it’s not a CSU they’d like to attend. Make your presence known for the right reasons.

-Christina Wilson,
senior jazz major

“Pot-hibition” created drug crime

Few people realize what a colossal failure drug prohibition is. People being misled by government officials do not know that the United States never had a “drug problem” until drug crusaders enacted prohibition laws.

Before we had drug laws, there was no such thing as “drug crime.” No one was robbing, whoring and murdering over drugs when addicts could buy all of the morphine, heroin, cocaine and anything else they wanted cheaply and legally at the corner pharmacy.

There were no drug gangs, no criminal drug cartels and no drug problem.
A legal heroin habit cost less than tobacco addiction — 50 cents per week in 1914 — and “drug crime” was unknown. Search the historic archives in vain trying to find a robbery, burglary, or assault associated with drug addiction when drugs were legal. The term “drug crime” is an invention of prohibitionists trying to cover the effects of their failed drug policy.

It’s worth remembering that Eliot Ness never put the booze gangs out of business. Repeal and a regulated market for adult alcohol use did that in short order. Repeal put the mob out of the bootlegging business and we haven’t had a shoot out or a bombing over beer routes since 1933.

Legalizing marijuana will be a small step toward ending the most destructive domestic policy since chattel slavery was abolished.

-Ralph Givens,
Daly City, Calif.

Drug programs tell marijuana lies

Another reason to re-legalize the relatively safe, socially acceptable, God-given plant cannabis — marijuana — that doesn’t get mentioned in the Feb. 18 Daily Forty-Niner editorial “Battling Marijuana Sends Our Money Up In Smoke” is that it will lower hard drug addiction rates.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, will have to stop brainwashing youth into believing lies, half-truths and propaganda concerning cannabis, which will lower deadly hard drug addiction rates.

How many citizens try cannabis and realize it’s not nearly as harmful as taught in DARE-type government environments? Then they think other substances must not be so bad either, only to become addicted to deadly drugs. The old lessons provided make cannabis out to be among the worst substances in the world, even though it’s never killed a single person.

The federal government even classifies cannabis as a Schedule I substance along with heroin, while methamphetamine and cocaine are only Schedule II substances. For the health and welfare of America’s children and adults, that message absolutely must change.

Regulated cannabis sales would make it so citizens who purchase cannabis would not come into contact with people who often also sell hard drugs, which would lower hard drug addiction rates, too.

-Stan White,
Dillon, Colo.

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