Posted November 8th, 2010 by hiwayhowie
Pubdate: Mon, 4 Oct 2010
STOPPING CARTELS
Your promotion of the latest idea in 45 years of drug prohibition is a disservice to readers. Every great-sounding idea has failed to make the smallest dent in Mexican drug operations.
This limit on cash sales is the latest cruel hoax to give us the false hope that it might make a difference.
While you act like a college football team’s cheerleader, Northern Mexico is dying.
Shame on you. You have never dared print a proven method to destroy the drug cartels, namely repealing drug prohibition.
At least ex-President Vicente Fox has the courage to state the obvious. What is your excuse?
Howard Wooldridge
Dallas
Posted July 27th, 2010 by hiwayhowie
As a street cop who worked the trenches of the drug war spanning three decades, I heartily agree with the observations of Sutton Stokes ( “Is marijuana legalization finally on the march in the U.S.?” Communities, Tuesday ). The prohibition of marijuana and the subsequent arrest of 800,000 citizens, mostly for personal use, means less time for deadly DUI offenders. When detectives are flying around in helicopters trying to find green plants, they are missing the pedophiles who are in the Internet chat rooms making contact with our young teens. We have all seen NBC’s “To Catch a Predator.” Police labs are not opening 400,000 rape kits and putting the DNA in the computer because proving the green stuff is marijuana is more of a priority.
This is insane. We are doing a poor job of protecting our little boys and girls and women in order to make the safe, easy and lucrative bust of a peaceful pot smoker. Will we ever become as wise as our grandparents and repeal this prohibition?
Howard J Wooldridge
Posted July 27th, 2010 by hiwayhowie
As a retired police officer, I heartily agree with PG columnist Tony Norman (“Legalized Pot? Like Getting Bonged in the Head,” July 13) that marijuana should be treated like alcohol, i.e., legal, regulated and taxed.
My profession will arrest more deadly DUIs and more child molesters when we stop arresting 800,000 marijuana users and suppliers each year. The police can once again focus on our original mission: public safety.
HOWARD J. WOOLDRIDGE
Adamstown, Md.
The writer co-founded Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10206/1074918-110.stm#ixzz0usWYMKZc
Posted June 27th, 2010 by hiwayhowie
Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jun 2010
Author: Howard Wooldridge
Mr. Jim Bayne’s column Sunday ( “Mexico has a legitimate gripe when it comes to our drug habit” ) refused to mention the elephant in the room; namely, drug prohibition. As he exhorts us to only use legal drugs, he and the prohibition crowd force us to use alcohol, a much more dangerous drug than marijuana, to take the edge off the day at 6 p.m. He is flat wrong that marijuana is a gateway drug. Every government research in five countries has concluded it is not ( the last was our Institute of Medicine in 1999 ).
Mankind has been taking mind-altering, intoxicating, addictive drugs for thousands of years. Drug prohibition – a self-inflicted wound – continues to be the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery and Jim Crow. As a retired police officer, I am baffled why this country continues to cling to the notion that drug prohibition is worth keeping.
Howard Wooldridge
Adamstown, Md.
