A Letter to Congress

Congresswoman Frankel,

I recently moved my family from California into a beautiful historic home in the Providencia Park neighborhood in WPB. By most accounts, this was a great move, but I am very concerned.

I uprooted my four kids remaining at home and left our beautiful little CA beach community when my 15-year-old son told me we had to leave. Imagine a teenage boy driven to leave his life, literally on the beach. He was less concerned for himself and the life he loved than for his big sister and two little brothers. He watched one friend after another become pot addicted and told me there were a grand total of four other kids in the neighborhood who refused to use pot. They start at 11 or 12 there and by 15, are trying other drugs. 

The "medical" marijuana ruse (I would love to meet with you to go into that) exploded casual use. The DARE programs now count pot with alcohol and do not teach against it. When the state makes it legal, that tells people it is safe.

Florida has everything going for it, but our step legalizing medical use gives me great concern that FL will soon follow CA down that really bad path.

You are a Representative of the people's branch of government. Note that no legislative body in the country legalized pot, and ask yourself why. Legal pot, either medical or recreational, cannot withstand public scrutiny before lawmaking bodies. The science and public policy implications are conclusive.

Right now, the states are thumbing their noses at the federal laws against pot and the executive branch is refusing to defend YOUR laws. That is anarchy.

Instead of being honest and changing the law, some members of Congress are taking the cowardly tack of handcuffing the FDA. Is that any way to govern?

Is the new American standard going to be that we pass laws to deal with a public policy problem, put them duly in the statutes, and then tell the voters we stand for one thing while making sure that thing never gets addressed? Are lawmakers going to be relegated to making laws through the appropriations process, funding what we like and defunding what we do not like, or worse? Will Members of Congress now devote themselves to eroding separation of powers by micromanaging the abilities of the various executive agencies?

I strongly urge you to reject this dishonest ploy. If you believe pot should be legal and broadly available to the public, then please hold hearings and change the law. Please do not play any part in this ridiculously dishonest attempt to subvert that precious process which at the end of the day, just diminishes the power of every Member of Congress.