Mailbag:

I am writing about your article (“Pot clinic raid nets 4 arrests,� Feb. 6). While I applaud the work of the Costa Mesa police when they’re at work fighting real crime — like murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, violent crime and theft — I have a hard time understanding how arresting peaceful people who are involved with medical marijuana helps anyone. Anyone except the Arrest and Prosecution Industry, that is. Police, prosecutors and others who get paychecks because of marijuana prohibition, like it.

A simple phone call from the city might be the best thing to try first when there are ostensible concerns over the smell of cannabis.

Cannabis vendors in “bikini tops and nurse hats� is a sure indication that the war on marijuana users has become a farce. It is time to add a little common sense to the equation and remove cannabis from the war on drugs.

Doug Snead

Drug policy analyst

Media Awareness Project /

Citizens or not, they should be protected

I must take exception to Tim Roach’s comment (Mailbag: “Kudos to officials for cracking down,� Feb. 5) that illegal immigrants are not “protected by the 1st Amendment. To say they are is just preposterous.�

I would like to preposterously suggest that Roach take a look at the U.S. Constitution, and not only the 1st Amendment.

I should like to point out a clause in the 14th Amendment, which states that the government shall not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.�

Whether or not one agrees with the wording of the 14th Amendment, the fact is that these people are people, and are therefore guaranteed full legal protection.

I do not disagree that the problem of illegal immigration needs to be better resolved than it has been, but we cannot do so in any way that would violate the terms of the Constitution.

To do so would be, by definition, unconstitutional, and, dare I say it, un-American.

Lenard Davis

Newport Beach