Letters to the Editor | Dec. 15, 2022
Inquirer readers on medical marijuana, student protests at Penn, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Protect Pa.’s cannabis program
Gov. Tom Wolf signed the Medical Marijuana Act into law in 2016, and since then, 842,021 Pennsylvanians have taken part in the commonwealth’s medical marijuana program. The program has directly created more than 30,000 family-sustaining jobs in our cities and small towns. These numbers do not include the ancillary job creation the program spurred in packaging, transportation, engineering, and construction. In addition to this job creation and investment, the commonwealth’s clinical research program is advancing cannabis science.
As an advocate and patient of Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program, I am encouraged by the election of Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro and Lt. Gov.-elect Austin Davis, both of whom embrace cannabis legalization. When selecting the commonwealth’s next secretary of health, I urge the governor-elect and his transition team to appoint someone who is knowledgeable of cannabis’s positive impact on Pennsylvanians and the market realities that stand to disrupt the program.
Meredith Buettner, executive director, Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition
Student protests at Penn
For over a year, students have been protesting at the University of Pennsylvania, pushing Penn to commit to help save the University City Townhomes affordable housing units. In September, students began camping out in front of Penn’s administrative building, demanding that Penn also divest from fossil fuels, and provide the city with payments in lieu of taxes to support Philadelphia’s public schools.
Since then, the university has sanctioned protesters, saying that our actions were “unreasonable.” There are no guidelines or definitions, just a subjective mandate for administrators to decide what is “reasonable” speech.
Is it surprising, though, that a peaceful protest to save the townhomes was deemed “unreasonable”? Penn is a colonizer and the bully of West Philly. Penn grows by displacing families. Penn has wealth because it was stolen from the Black Bottom (now called University City). Penn maintains its prestige by silencing those who reveal the harm it causes. But we — students, faculty, alumni, and neighbors — won’t be quieting down anytime soon.
Ari Bortman, coordinator, Fossil Free Penn
Recipe for a coup
Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks that she could have won an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Over 30 House Republicans tweeted Mark Meadows asking him to get Donald Trump to declare martial law and install Trump as president. Ginni Thomas was all for such actions as well. But the majority of Americans are not going to sit idly by and do nothing. The only outcome would be the arrest and incarceration of the insurrectionists and a transfer of power in any event. Republicans should simply wait until June 2023, when the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the independent state legislative theory, and they will have control of federal elections. This would be a coup by legal means.
George Magakis Jr., Norristown
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