Neighborhood not worth ‘saving’ from college housing

Save Jefferson Park? My question is … from what?

Have you ever driven through the Jefferson Park neighborhood? It is street after street of old, ugly, 50-year-old ranch homes with steel bars on the windows. Many of these homes are situated in the alleyways between streets. Who lives in an alley? An alley cat? A homeless person? The answer is both.

The Jefferson Park neighborhood has no historical value like some of its residents claim. I live in Jefferson Park and often drive down each street in search of unique or highly valued homes. Just last week I came across a shack (as most homes in Jefferson Park could be described as) with old boats and lawn mowers laying on its roof, as well as scattered across the front of the property. So it surprised me when I saw the bright “”Save Jefferson Park”” planted in the front yard. Save Jefferson Park? From what?

Jefferson Park is the prime location for more student housing. It’s sad that so many properties in Jefferson Park are occupied by people who haven’t realized that they live 100 yards away from a university with 35,000 students.

Jacob Winkler

Regional development junior

Cam Newton knew better, or should have

When I was about 10, I stole some packets of 1 cent sweetened Kool-Aid from a local grocer. No one knew about my petty crime, but I sure knew what I was doing was wrong on the following four counts: the planning, the stealing, the eating and the secreting. Newton the younger may not have been mature enough to say “”No!”” but he was certainly mature enough to know that what he was doing was wrong. You fail to mention that he was arrested for the burglary of a $1,700 laptop and lied to the police about the incident, which expanded his charges to include obstruction of justice. I don’t see anyone claiming that Newton the elder’s acts, or failures to act promoted Cam’s thieving, his lying and his cheating. In 2010 dollars, Cam’s theft is worse than my own by a factor of 1,700, and he was twice my age. So, Cam Newton is 3,400 times more culpable than I had been, and, as far as I know, he has uttered not one word of remorse, much less one of culpability.

Tims Quinn

Senatobia, Miss.

Marijuana policy still flawed

In response to Storm Byrd’s column “”A new kind of green party””: If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are as inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. White Americans did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched federal bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.

Marijuana prohibition has failed miserably as a deterrent. The U.S. has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available to adults. The only clear winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who’ve built careers confusing the drug war’s collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant.

Robert Sharpe

Policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.