Dear Governor:

I’ve written you before that I greatly admire your strength and courage for reversing your position on Medicaid Expansion. Those same virtues will be called upon again to end this second prohibition.

Whether marijuana is good or bad is irrelevant. Decriminalization is not endorsement. It’s simply an admission of human weakness, an acceptance of what’s really happening as opposed to what we wish would be or think should be. For two and a half decades, millions defied laws that denied human nature. Have we learned nothing from that debacle?

Bottom line: Morality cannot be legislated.

The current prohibition cloaks a terrible theft of time, money, talent and resources. Our Legislature has reached its limits on both enacting viable marijuana laws and allocating tight funds.

In 2010, the FBI reported that “in the U.S.’s overburdened criminal justice system, nearly four of 10 murders, six of 10 rapes and nine of 10 burglaries go unsolved.” In a survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police, 82 percent said that the “war on drugs” had not been successful in reducing drug use. We desperately need to detach marijuana from the hellish underworld of organized crime.

Bottom line: Wyoming cannot afford to continue this lost crusade.

Let there be no more ruined lives! Criminalization disproportionately disfigures the lives of young people and their families. Our youth are already burdened with violent schools, crushing debt, growing robotics, climate upset and more.

Bottom line: The next generation will continue to flee our state.

Let there be no more needless misery! Prescriptions are more overpriced than ever and come with pages and pages of contraindications and side effects. Insurance coverage remains burdensome, inadequate and uncertain.

Our health delivery system is among the worst in the developed nations. These disproportionately devastate the chronically ill and the elderly. It’s what millions of Americans, thousands of Wyomingites are facing every day!

Bottom line: People are not entirely free if they’re not permitted to ease their suffering.

Hear our cry. Lead the way. End this injunction right now, please. Justice cannot, must not also be deaf and dumb.

Geri Maria Johnson

Cheyenne