Marijuana Policy Project

In your younger days, you smoked a little pot. Some of you smoked a lot of pot. You giggled and acted silly and enjoyed the munchies. Eventually, you outgrew the habit and became a respectable, law-abiding citizen.

You know who you are. There are close to 100 million of you, including our governor, Charlie Crist.

You know that no one ever died from overdosing on pot. You know that marijuana is a harmless plant that never hurt anyone. You know this from personal experience. You go to movies like the hilarious "9 to 5" and laugh when Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda have a little pot party.

You laugh when a comedian tells about the pot head who studied five days for a urine test.

Well, "you" should be ashamed of yourself. You stood by while 830,000 arrests were made last year on marijuana charges. Doesn't it bother you that these arrests were made for possession of a drug that you know never hurt anyone? Doesn't it bother you that U.S. sentencing guidelines frequently require nonviolent drug offenders to serve sentences much longer than murderers?

How can you let hundreds of thousands of young lives be ruined by our insane marijuana laws?

I appeal to your sense of justice. Just remember that, but for the grace of God, you might have spent time in prison for your past use of marijuana.

Why should these young people suffer while you got off scot-free? Speak up. Let your legislators know your views. Let your neighbors know your views. Write letters to the editor of your newspaper.

I am not ashamed of having smoked pot when younger and neither should you. If we all spoke up at once, these insane marijuana laws could be abolished.

George W. Iliff, Port St. Lucie