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MEDICAL MARIJUANA

A front for full legalization

The Wisconsin Narcotics Officers Association agrees with state Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) that medical marijuana is a "facade."

Testimony that is based on science clearly shows that marijuana is a marginal painkiller at best, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not approve it, and if Wisconsin passes legislation, our laws would become contrary to federal law.

The parade of people with real medical concerns at the Madison hearing on Senate Bill 368 and Assembly Bill 554 was sad, because those backing this effort are using them to reach their goal of expanded legal marijuana use.

Behind the scene, NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Law) is driving the engine, and the sick as well as well-meaning lawmakers are being used.

Polls show Wisconsinites are behind medical marijuana, I suggest dropping the word medical and ask our citizenry if we want marijuana.

Make no mistake, this is a foot in the door. It is marijuana legislation, and it is not genuine to refer to it as medical.

Charles Wood

Vice president

Wisconsin Narcotics Officers Association

Commander

Waukesha County Metropolitan Drug Unit

Waukesha

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Odd logic

Did anyone else think it odd that Rep. Pat Strachota (R-West Bend) opposes medicinal marijuana because so many sick people would be included?

She noted, "The state Department of Health Services said 2.6 million state residents - or nearly half of Wisconsin's population - have medical conditions that could qualify them for the state registry."

Why would that be a reason to be against it? If the drug companies could find a way to monopolize that homeopathic remedy, it would have been permitted yesterday!

James Maas

Rothschild

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ARCHBISHOP LISTECKI

Contraception option needed

As a practicing Catholic and also as a pediatric nurse practitioner intimately involved on a daily basis with child and adolescent victims of sexual abuse, I was deeply concerned with the statements of Catholic Archbishop-designate Jerome E. Listecki regarding emergency contraception (Page 1B, Dec. 17).

I am very familiar with both the theology and science of emergency contraception. To administer this is never a decision made lightly. It is always done with intense discussion of the purpose and side effects. Sexual abuse and sexual assault are horrific, almost unspeakable crimes. The first step in the healing and, so to speak treatment, of this is to offer emergency contraception when age and clinically appropriate.

As a health professional, for me not to offer emergency contraception when indicated to sexual abuse victims, would be medical malpractice. More importantly for me, from a religious perspective, not to offer this would be moral malpractice.

Michael Scahill

Milwaukee

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CHILD CARE

Rating system would help kids

Like many Milwaukee Journal Sentinel readers, we are alarmed by revelations of fraud and connections to drug dealers among child care providers (Page 1A, Dec. 13). While the providers profiled in the stories are clearly not reflective of Wisconsin's 9,000 child care providers as a whole, the theft of tax dollars is disturbing. It is equally disturbing to consider the quality of care and early education children are receiving in child care programs that are defrauding the government or are fronts for illegal activity.

In addition to the aggressive measures being undertaken by officials to root out the misconduct, it is time to implement a quality improvement and assurance system for Wisconsin Shares that ensures our children are not being served in substandard or harmful settings and also provides incentives and support for programs to meet quality standards.

The Department of Children and Families and Gov. Jim Doyle are working on a detailed proposal for a quality rating and improvement system. The system would improve early learning for low-income children, provide parents with ratings to help them choose the best child care, help programs meet quality standards, and provide benchmarks for communities to measure the quality of their child care programs.

Other states' quality rating and improvement systems are showing impressive results. In the midst of stories of fraud in child care, Wisconsin has the opportunity to make a positive breakthrough for kids: a system that makes sure our children get a solid start. Readers who share our concerns should encourage their legislators to support the quality rating and improvement system.

Ken Taylor

Executive director

Wisconsin Council on Children and Families

Madison

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HEALTH CARE

Force through expanded care

Until today, I was a staunch supporter of President Barack Obama's health care reform plan. I supported it because I believed that the excesses of the health insurance industry must be curbed, tens of millions of uninsured Americans must finally have access to health care and because the free market has failed miserably at providing affordable insurance to all Americans.

I cannot recall a president who came to office with a stronger mandate for reform than did Obama. With strong majorities in the House and Senate, he should have gotten most, if not all of the reforms he promised in his campaign. But I concluded that the once robust reform plan has been reduced to a hollow shell that provides no relief to the uninsured and actually enriches the insurance companies at the expense of those uninsured Americans.

Democrats should immediately expand Medicare through the reconciliation process and quit wasting time.

The power of corporate America to purchase legislators and thwart the will of the people is nothing short of breathtaking.

Frank Haney

Racine

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CHILD WELFARE

Officials taking some key steps

Gina Barton's Dec. 14 story "Allegheny County system builds trust by keeping kids with families" highlighted a child welfare agency that has become a national model. In addition to my quote that "Milwaukee has some work in front of it," I'd like to point out that Milwaukee is making progress.

Allegheny County owes its success to 12 years of change, and it benefits from having a human services agency with an array of services that support child welfare.

The Bureau of Milwaukee Bureau Child Welfare can realize similarly good results if the leadership continues along its new course.

Under Gov. Jim Doyle, the state has made organizational changes to create more community services to children and families, like those in Pennsylvania. Also, the bureau has reduced the number of children in care significantly.

The state's strategy is aligned with our national mission to accomplish the two most important things for vulnerable children: to keep them safe and to prevent them from languishing in care.

Wisconsin and the bureau are showing a commitment to change and are taking some key steps to improve outcomes for children.

David Sanders, PhD

Executive Vice President

Casey Family Programs

Seattle

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COASTIES

Moniker wasn't tied to religion

I was intrigued by the Journal Sentinel's article about Coasties at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Page 1B, Dec. 16).

As a graduate of UW who lived among Coasties of multiple backgrounds in a private dorm, there are few people more qualified to comment on this divide than I am. I have close friends - gentiles and Jews - from New York, Boston, Washington, Florida, Texas, Illinois and California, among other places.

My point is that a person who discusses the difficulty an East Coaster faces in meshing well with others is either romanticizing and repurposing the struggles undergone by a majority of new college students or pointing a finger in the wrong direction.

A classmate of mine at Marquette University High School and UW, Troy Vosseller, started a company called "Sconnie Nation" in response to the condescension and even scorn heaped upon the locals by Coasties

One of my freshman year roommates, who was from suburban Boston, always smilingly referred to the two of us from Milwaukee as Sconnies. There was no love lost when we smilingly referred to him as a Coastie.

To bring references to Judaism into the equation is of questionable taste and about as pertinent as it would be to identify Sconnies with Germans. Whether Coastie is becoming shorthand for "Jew" is separate from the idea of "Jew" or "Wisconsinite" being coded language for something negative.

Having just as many gentile Coasties as Jewish ones among my friends, I can attest to the fact that there is little, if any, actual animosity among these demographics at UW.

Rory O. Gillick

Milwaukee

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FINANCIAL CRISIS

Krugman in denial

Paul Krugman's column, "Economic disaster and denial," included his own denial (Perspectives, Dec. 15). He never mentioned the pressure put on lenders by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and their congressional committees to say nothing of the pressure Acorn put on lenders to make these ridiculous mortgage loans to unqualified people.

Krugman is the one who is in denial of all the facts that led to this mess. Next time, tell the whole story please.

Ruth Alt

Glendale

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SCHOOL BREAKFAST

Columnist missed the point

Hungry children do not learn: It's the basic premise behind the school breakfast program that columnist Mike Nichols missed (Editorials, Dec. 12).

I applaud school districts in Mequon, Milwaukee and anywhere else that start breakfast programs in school. Breakfast programs give children of all ages and backgrounds a nutritious start to the school day. Hunger does not discriminate.

Nichols also fails to mention that school meal programs stimulate business. In Wisconsin, school meal programs bring in $130 million in federal money annually. Ask companies such as General Mills, Kellogg's, Reinhart Food Service, and dozens of other companies in Wisconsin - school meal programs are good for their bottom line.

So let's see: School breakfast programs feed children, get school days off to a good start and support businesses all over Wisconsin.

As a taxpayer and parent, I fully support government programs producing such good results.

Jon Janowski

Director of Advocacy

Hunger Task Force

Milwaukee