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nBai Serving U Lee Gontz, Editor in Chief ( Editor] Erin Galloway, Wendy Hudson, Jimmy DeButts, Ryan Wilson, C M A A Electronic question ( Many students on USC's can counts with commercial computi One of the main uses for thes mail, computer-generated and i electronic mail box to another. Messages sent across the elect to risque love letters to criticism Are these flashes of informat as conventional mail has been in tronic systems, the government a an increasing question of privac; Without extensive secunty pi are relatively easily accessed by ever wants to access them. Even more tricky is the quest censorship and libel over the elei ic lines. At what point can somec held accountable for things writt( line? The freedoms and privacy en by typical publications should bi tinued over electronic publication ods. Just because the media is dif! does not mean different rules ap publication of information. People's mail needs to be pri protected from government inte evaluated for electronic publicat Men 'cleai because o DREW f m * STEWART Columnist The other day, while aimless ly walking through the Russel House, I heard a woman talkin about how women are totally un appreciated by men. She wa even daring enough to say, "I you talk to most men, we don' even exist." That is about as true as bar becue cooked on a gas grill in stead of a pit. Ladies, believe i or not, are the entire motivatioi for men to act respectably in an; sort of way outside of their homes Sit down in your hammock open up a can of Co-Cola and whi your brain about it a while. Hav you ever seen how men act whei we aren't around women? If it weren't for women.... Men wouldn't bathe. Th only time I bathe or shower i when I know I am going to bum into a certain lady (or if I'm gc ing hunting, but that's a whol other column). Shoot, if I kno> I'm not gonna see a lady, I don even change socks. Men wouldn't, wear olnt.hp (well, shirts anyway). The res son we wear things outside c "Buck Lure" tee-shirts, camoi flage pants and Atlanta Brave baseball hats is because of yo lovely ladies. A suit and tie woul be about as unheard of as th Rush Limbaugh Fan Division < the National Organization fc Women. Men wouldn't watch the: language. Ever overhear a grou of men talking? We say thing that would make the devil blus with shame while we're alom but when there is a lady presen even in the same building, me undergo a conversion that riva that of St. Paul on the road 1 Damascus. You won't hear th slightest mention of even the lea objectionable word. Men would do nothing bi hunt and fish. Hey, that wouldr be that bad, but who would v have to help us decide where 1 Lee Clontz Jimmy DeButts Editor in Chief Ryan Wilson Chris Muldrow Sports Editors Viewpoints Editor Kim Truett Carson Henderson Photo Editor Radhlka Talwanl Ethan Myerson Copy Desk Chiefs Ryan Sims Erin Calloway Graphics Editors Wendy Hudson Gregory Perez News Editors Design Editor Susan Goodwin All Ansaar Allison Williams Jason Jeffers Features Editors Cartoonists The Gamecock is the student newspaper of It University of South Carolina and is published Tuesd; through Friday during the fall and spring semesters, wi the exception of university holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of ll editors or author and not those of the University i South Carolina. ^ y The Game ffemck SC Since 1908 Chris Muldrow, Viewpoints Editor lal Board Susan Goodwin, Allison Williams, 'arson Henderson, Radhika Talwani age brings >f privacy lpus have Internet accounts or acer bulletin board services. se accounts at present is electronic delivered mail that goes from one ronic lines vary from business deals is of government. inn fViniirrli oc oQAvnt' onrl nnuofo <iuiij i/iiuugii, cio ocuct aim pnvaic the past? Companies that run elecind users of electronic mail will face y and freedom of information, mgrams, many electronic accounts who- ______________ ionof Correction :tron?ne be ?na Grant, the Massachum on- se^ts s^dent rejected from Harvard after the school j found she was convicted of 3 c^n manslaughter, lived in Lex, ington, S.C., not Lexington, me Ky., as reported in Wednesday's Gamecock. erent ply to [Vate, people's privacy needs to be irvention, and libel laws should be :ion. a n up well' if women mount them? Men would not clean up the slightest thing. The world would J be a junk pile if it weren't for women. Do you think we clean up on our own? There would be S i- no need for landfills if there ^ 1 weren't ladies because men are 1 g inherently pack rats. We would t i- save everything, even stuff we i s know is broken and ain't no good. i. f We don't know why we do it, but t a T rln lfnnw tVio nnlu ronsnn wp ( t a. v.v, v...; throw away anything is because r women make us. t Cars would not exist. Every t t man, be him city or country, has c n at one time wanted a pickup c y truck. The only reason we get F , cars are for women. If we didn't have women to impress with our f p cars, we would just drive around i, e in old rusted pickup trucks with c n no hubcaps or and rusted out tail- 1 gates. c There would only be three s e ch an n e 1 s on TV: E S PN, I SportsSouth and The Nashville F Network. The soap opera lineup ^ would be replaced with afternoon f showings of Roland Martin, Jim- t 8 my Houston and World Cham- ? f pionship Wrestling. Sally Jessy 1 would be replaced with "Bass- i masters," and Oprah would be i ;S replaced with my show, "Sum- ] merton 29148." 1 We wouldn't have to put up : l" with Hillary Clinton, Ricki Lake 1 !S or that stupid girl off of "Bios- ] u som." Wait a minute, that's a good l d thing! Nix that. e There would be no songs. ] ^ How many songs do you think ! >r we write about each other? About ' the only one we would have to 1 lr listen to is "All My Rowdy Friends P are Coming Over Tonight." >s So, ladies, as you can see, we i h really do appreciate you. Could 1 e> you imagine a world without < t> women? i n It would look worse than the Is rear end of a baboon. So the next 'O time you and your female friends < ie decide that men don't appreciate st you, just run up to the first man you see and tell him how nice the | it shirt he's wearing looks. 1't Drew Stewart is re a journalism sophomore. to ___ 777, Chris Carroll 'WS'. . ~ _ ??, Director of Student Media ivertising: 777-4249 Laura Dav k inn s a o _ aw: / / /-utoz Creative Director Jim Green _ Art Director Tieffa Harper Elizabeth Thomas Tina Morgan . . ? Assl News Adv' Graduate Asst. James Ponce Renee Gibson Assi. Photo Marketing Director Ben Pillow Christopher Wood Stephanie Sonnenfeld Asst. Advertising Asst.Features Manager Larry Williams Erik Collins Sf*"ls Faculty Advisor Keith Boudreaux ' Circulation Editor Letters Policy le The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. jv Letters should be 200-250 words and must include full J, name, professional title or year and major if a student. Letters must be personally delivered by the author to ye The Gamecock newsroom in Russell House room 333. of The Gamecock reserves the right to edit all letters for style, possible libel or space limitations. Names will not be withheld under any circumstances. -VIEWPOIN V* UOTEUNQUOTE "Something's inherently wrong when > Legalizing man A 1991 Department of Health and Human Services survey indicated that almost 10 million Americans smoked marijuana regularly, 20 milion were occasional users and more than onehird of the entire over-12 population had tried t. Despite this widespread use, government marjuana policy continues to exhibit the kind of hyseria formerly retained for the Red menace from Ihina and Russia. Thirteen years after the most ecent drug war against marijuana began, it is ime that this country reevaluated the prohibiion and legalized pot so that millions of Amerians can legally enjoy a simple pleasure and the ountry can save billions of dollars fighting a stu>id and petty battle that it will never win. This makes social, economic and rational sense or three essential reasons. Having outlawed marjuana in 1937, the United States has done with >ut the well-documented benefits of commercial lemp cultivation; the costs and inequity of the Irug war and the imprisonment of tens of thou;ands of Americans are absurdly expensive; and potential tax revenue from legal and regulated )ot sales is enormous. The word marijuana is used to refer to the lowers, leaves and stalk of the cannabis plant of he hemp family. Hemp is one of the most versatile and valuable plants known to man. It can )e processed into a remarkable number of prodlcts. Charcoal, methanol, ethanol, paper, oil, bionass fuel? animal and human foods, clothing, orotein and fiberboard are just some of the uses. Environmentally, it is also significantly preferable than other crops. For example, unlike cot:on production, which uses 50 percent of all the pesticides in the United States, hemp can be jrown with hardly any chemical help. Before the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, hemp provided a wide variety of benefits. For example, the first Levis were made from hemp because of the plant's lasting durability. Marijuana prohibition has ended this. If you want to know the 'what might have been," read the February 1938 Popular Mechanics issue. Contrary to its own legislation, however, during World War II the ... federal government commercially harvest- . ed the plant, a fact detailed in the government film "Hemp for Victory." TV-io rrnvornmont orir) anti-rlnicr Roafor ? Madness hysteria has lamentably clouded the issue of commercial cultivation. J. Hemp produces a myriad of valuable 1 products beyond the twisted, hand-rolled cigarettes that remain in the spotlight of the drug controversy. Sadly these great advantages are overshadowed by a desire to cleanse society of those unsavory marijuana elements who either sell it or smoke it. Being arrested for drugs has become a ver^ hit-or-miss affair. The root of this is the 1986 An ti-Drug Act that arose from a legislative desire for tougher, although not necessarily saner, penalties. If you are convicted under federal law, this act obliges judges to hand out the strictest punishment available, so-called mandatory-minimums. During the preceding 200 years of American legal his- | , tory a judge could exercise his discretion in reducing sentences based on extenuating circumstances and convincing appeals for mer cyThe 1986 Act suddenly took this power awa] from the bench and handed it to the U.S. attor ney, who now decides where and when and if i mandatory-maximum will apply. Should the at torney choose to "enhance" the case by framinj the charge under the federal statute and you lose you're toast. In a guilty verdict the judge is forcei A ITS Thursday, April 13, 1995 V 115 ao Mouse 'ou don't have a professor teaching, for whateve Sen. David Thomas, R-Fountain Inn [juana would ma NIGEL RAVENHILL ^ Columnist to sentence you to the maximum term, and visions of parole will just dance in your head until your sentence has been served. The only avoidance of this hardship is to testify against someone else and hope that you can provide enough names, dates and information. Caveat emptor, these plea bargains are not guaranteed. Now why should people admittedly involved somehow in drugs be coddled? Here are three Anti-Drug Act examples from the real world. First offender Michael Irish helped unload a boatload of hashish and received 12 years, and fellow first offender Charles Dunlap rented a truck used by a friend to import pot and received eight years. In 1991 Mark Young introduced two growers to a representative of a New York drug dealer. With no history of violent crime and two suspended sentences for very minor felonies over a decade earlier, he touched neither the money nor the drugs. His simple introduction led to a charge of "conspiracy to manufacture," and the attorney chose to enhance the charge and shoot for life imprisonment. Young had no information to plea bargain and was sentenced to life at Leavenworth prison with zero parole. Had he been tried differently, he might have received a seven-year sentence. So von thp taynavpr will snpnd almost 5k 1 million for this nonviolent felon to spend the next 40 to 50 ! years in jail. The big problem stemming from this unnecessary influx of inmates is that judges have recently begun ordering prisons to reduce overL crowding. Convicts with no possibility of parole such as Young will have to remain |H in prison while more violent crim|inals will be prematurely re1111leased into your commuff;nities. Personally I would much rather H HBdBi clear the prisons of the / benign elements of marijuana trafficking in order to provide long-term institution[ 5 v iiW residence f?r the far more ^ B odious elements of mankind who jpl^really warrant exclusion t ||r|jl^w. from society. In 1970 16.3 federal pris ers. In 1994 it y > j S 3 ' ^ ^ i 'V6U1 " both users and revenue and factors that could reduce tax revenue upon legalization. Their conclusions are that "the marijuana industry in 1991 was estimated to generate $5.09 to 9.09 billion of untaxed revenue." Additionally, as production and processing costs are extremely low, almost all of this revenue is profit and thus subject to taxation. Personally I don't really care whether others choose to get stoned. I prefer a cold beer, and for a high 111 take skiing and windsurfing any day. But marijuana is not the dangerous evil of government portrayals. The greater loss is that in enacting a repressive prohibition against it (an experiment that miserably failed when applied to alcohol), the government curtails exploitation of a valuable agricultural crop that can provide en mnch Let the Deadheads go in peace, and give me a house of hemp. B.r Nigel B J Ravenhill is a B - m graduate student Y 1| m mass communica9 r reason, but continuing to be paid." . ?? ! Jse U.S. money was 62 percent, and by 1996 seven out of every 1 ?Mfin/\nAi>n unll V*/-* i v\ irrfi T^U AV*rt r?\?a tyi aVrt ?\J 1SU11CI O Will UC ill 1U1 UI Ug3. 111CIC aic lllUIC people in jail simply for drugs today (over 200,000) than the entire national prison population in 1970. Over half of the Justice Department's 1991 budget ($3.8 billion) was spent on anti-drug programs including the federal Bureau of Prisons and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Since 1982, about $30 billion has been spent to combat marijuana, 4 million Americans have been arrested and over 250,000 have spent at least one year in jail. You get the picture. This is ridiculous. All this money combats a drug that is measurably safer than either tobacco or alcohol. If the'400,000 who annually succumb from tobacco smoking were to collectively die in one day, to bacco would be outlawed the following morning. There has never been a single death nor a case of lung cancer exclusively linked to consumption of any amount of pot. Unlike caffeine, alcohol or nicotine, smoking joints is not physically addictive. The marijuana prohibition has also sharply curtailed its role in medicine, for which its retail sale remained legal until 1937. Some will endlessly preach that pot lowers testosterone and sperm levels, causes psychosis and makes you stupid. Wrong. Were the virility argument true, I would question why Jamaica has not been severely depopulated. I would also argue that television renders the average person incomparably more insipid and stupid than pot could ever do, and for evidence I offer you Ricki Lake and Sally Jesse Raphael. Michael Caputo, Ph.D., and Brian Ostrom, Ph.D., published their highly interesting study, "Potential Tax Revenue from a Regulated Marijuana Market," in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology (October 1994). They consider such angles as how government could tax lorrol calo ootimatoo r\f mar-lref in torms nf