The Rambler (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 99, No. 2, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 12, 2007 Page: 3 of 6
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The Rambler
Opinions
September 12, 2007 3
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Healing won t be breed on victims
A look at New Orleans journey to reconstruction and healing post-Katrina
Colleen
Burnie
Drive East through downtown and you will see a
billboard calling all of the Katrina victims home.
"Fort Worth took you in, now New Orleans
wants you back," the sign declares.
Just weeks after the two year anniversary of
Katrina, and the world looks into the Big Easy and sees
that not much has changed. The progress
is slow, as people slowly return to their
home.
I was in the Crescent City just
weeks before the Category 3 stonn hit
~~ =— t|lc cjt^ an(j j watched the homes of my
loved ones get washed away by the mismanagement of the
Corps of Engineers and the corrupt Louisiana government
and then continued to watch while our federal government
failed to provide a real solution for the people whose lives
were torn apart.
I was also in the city on three different occasions after
the stonn to help with the relief effort and pray over New
Orleans. It was during these trips that I was able to see the
destruction that had come with this storm and how much
was lost.
My heart has ached for New Orleans ever since those
trips. I was able to experience the culture, music and
unique personality of the Marti Gras city, and I was there to witness its
collapse.
As I walked through the Lower Ninth Ward for the first time after the
storm, I remember asking my friend and WeslSyan alumnus Tony
Leverett why the government didn't just clear away all of the debris and
start over.
'"Property rights — one of the foundational American rights," he said.
""The people who own these lots have the right to choose what to do with
their property."
I was aware, as I stood there looking at the wreckage of neighbor-
hoods, that it would take years to rebuild what Katrina had torn down. I
listened as students around me made comments about how they were "so
sick of hearing about New Orleans," and I knew that if I were one of the
people who had to deal with the consequences of that storm on a daily
basis, that I would
hope for people to
be more understand-
ing and willing to
listen.
Now, two years
later, it seems that
we as a nation and
New Orleans as a
city have not learned
anything. Hie Corps
of Engineers are
making the same
mistakes with levies,
the New Orleans
government is still
not using the money
they are given the -
right way and the nation is still not prepared to handle another national
disaster of that kind of latitude.
According to the August issue of Time magazine, only a third of New
Orleans' population has returned. But how can we expect people to return
to a city, where the possibility of losing everything is still so real and
close?
Colleen Bimiie is a senior writing major and is the entertainment editor for The ->
Rambler.
Photo by Colleen Burnie
The wreckage Katrina left behind is not a simple mess to clean up
or, for New Orleaners, an easy loss to take.
Banning pot causes more problems
Guest Column
Cassaundre Braden
KANSAS STATE COT,T,EGlAMVWim
Aug. 2 marked the 70th anniversary of the start of one of the great
social experiments in American history. Sadly, the experiment has
failed miserably and should have ended years ago.
The first national anti-marijuana law, the Marijuana Tax Act, was
signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Aug. 2, 1937.
Though disguised as a tax, the law functioned as the first federal ban
on the possession and cultivation of marijuana. The
ban continues in various forms to tins day. Now, 70
years later, we can see this program has not prevent-
ed the use of marijuana in the United States.
Marijuana use increased after the drug was banned. In 1937, marijua-
na use was rare in the United States because marijuana virtually was
unknown to many parts of the country, according to a study conducted at
the University of California, San Francisco.
The federal government has estimated in the pre-prohibition era, about
1.2 percent of the population had tried marijuana by age 35. In recent
decades, figures show the range to consistently hover at 40 to 50 percent,
according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Marijuana is now our nation's largest cash crop by a whopping margin.
According to Americans for Safe Access, an organization based in
Oakland, Calif., the 2006 U.S. marijuana crop was valued at $35.8 billion
by street pricing, exceeding the value of corn ($23.3 billion) and wheat
($7.45 billion) combined.
Opponents of the drug will argue marijuana would be more widely
used if legalized. In the Netherlands, adults are allowed to possess and
purchase small amounts of marijuana from regulated businesses. Rates of
marijuana use are lower there than in the United States.
According to figures collected from both the U.S. Department of
Justice and the Netherlands Ministry of Health in 2005, 17.1 percent of
Netherlands residents age 12 and older had tried marijuana, compared to
40.1 percent in the United States.
Instead of stopping Americans from using marijuana, prohi-
bition of this herb simply has handed a lucrative market to
criminals. With legitimate businesses banned from producing
or selling a popular product, gangsters stepped
in to fill the void
With prohibition keeping
the price high, there always will
be new growers ready to replace
each one who is busted. There has
been little progress made
for the tens of bill ions of
dollars spent seizing mari-
juana plants and arresting
users at the rate of near-
ly 800,000 per year.
These costs are even more
tragic when considering the sci-
entific experts who consistently
report marijuana is a far safer drug
than alcohol or tobacco — it is less
addictive, much less toxic and is less
likely to induce aggression
or violence. These results
were found in a study by Dr.
Andrew Weil and Dr. Nonnan Zinberg
in a Dec. 13, 1968, issue of Science. The
Drug Enforcement Agency no longer allows
the possession of marijuana for research pur-
poses, thus newer studies have not been conducted.
It's time to leam from our nation's disastrous
attempt to ban alcohol. Instead of the futility and
destruction of prohibition, let's put marijuana under a common-sense sys-
tem of taxation and regulation, just like alcohol and tobacco.
Courtesy of Google Images
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WWW.SHELDONCOMICS.COM
DAVE KELLETT
Kelli Lamers, adviser
Zainah Usman, photo editor
Jack Walker, sports editor
Skyla Claxton, advertising manager
The Rambler
Founded in 1917 as The Handout
Harold G. Jeff coat, Publisher
Member of the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association
Shawn R Poling, editor-in-chief
Tiara Nugent, managing/college life editor
Colleen Burnie, entertainment editor
Amanda May, Web editor
Opinions expressed in The Rambler are those of the individual author only
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Texas Wesleyan community as a whole.
Letters to the editor: The Rambler, a weekly publication, welcomes all letters.
All submissions must have a full printed name, phone number and signature; however, confidentiality will be granted if requested.
While every consideration is made to publish letters, publication is limited by time and space.
The editors reserve the right to edit all submissions for space, grammar, clarity and style.
Letters to the editor may be subject to response from editors and students on the opinions page.
"We are not afraid to follow the truth...wherever it may lead." -Thomas Jefferson
Address all correspondence to:
Texas Wesleyan University, The Rambler, 1201 Wesleyan St., Fort Worth, TX 76105.
Newsroom: 531-7552 Advertising: 531-7582 Fax: 531-4878
E-mail: twurambler@yahoo.com
Rambler Ratings
Thumbs up to the IT depart-
ment for quick and successful
solutions to our needs at the
Rambler.
Thumbs up to the new up-to-
date computers in the ARC
computer lab.
Thumbs down to the book-
store for not keeping up with
orders
J
Thumbs up to the financial
aid ladies for saving students
and their accounts!
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Poling, Shawn R. The Rambler (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 99, No. 2, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 12, 2007, newspaper, September 12, 2007; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201239/m1/3/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Wesleyan University.