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To the Editor: 

Is it federal malfeasance, or what? 

With the ascendancy of the midwestern "main streeters" Ashcroft & Hutchinson who believe that response and mobilizing against terrorism is to have an attack of stupidity. The ignorant, moralizing religious right authoritarians promoting the subversive doctrine of the shepherd - sheep model of government through the abuse of the Justice Department, Courts, and DEA. 

These home grown ayotollahs and Pharisees have corroded and breached the constitutional separations between church and state. Through this fifth column that operates at the highest levels of government America is doomed to accelerating decline economically and morally. The resulting cynicism, alienation, and hostility toward toxic federalism will only strengthen the resolve of local government to resist and defy this evil irrational leviathan from inside the beltway. 

When the Homeland Security or the FBI proclaim a red alert, judging from recent events, we need to prepare for federal terrorism against Californians and Oregonians. That's what I would call an attack of the incompetents who hurt not only the innocents but divide and distract from community security efforts. Or does this rise to the level of subversion? 

The local proactive structural responses will recall coping strategies from Prohibition and other contemporary federal witch hunts that will be impossible to suppress. The ironic and inadvertent consequences will be to empower the criminal market and make the US a laughing stock. Europe and the UK move forward in getting safe and affordable cannabis to patients in a developing pharmaceutical & herbal medicine market. Global competitive position of the US made impossible by the DEA and other cannabis prohibitionists. 

-Tod H. Mikuriya