Reader Scott Duran writes:

Thank you for the article on the Million Marijuana March. I attended it, and it was a very enlightening event. And while Mr. Whited’s article was pretty accurate, spending two paragraphs on the fact that a local convenience store was indeed receiving consumables didn’t leave much room to talk about another issue discussed at the march: the U.S. Government’s ongoing criminalization of growing ‘Industrial Hemp’ (the stuff you can’t get high on).

The irony of our Government making hemp growing a crime is that the original drafts of our Constitution– the basis of our Nation and its laws– were written on hemp paper.

We have to import this material from other countries, instead of allowing our farmers to grow it. At the march there was a demonstration of the properties of a hemp “particle board” that is naturally fire proof and water-resistant (consider how New Orleans and Southern California could have used that material to rebuild after the recent floods and fires). Too bad we can’t grow the material on our own soil. “Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere,” George Washington once wrote.

Under current law, Mr. Washington would be arrested for doing that. I’d gladly march to protest that, just like I am glad to march for all the other reasons, too.