By Perskie Source: PressPlus Two recent items in the news suggest that some people in positions of authority still don't get it: Last month in California, a state where voters legalized marijuana use for people who are sick or dying, federal agents uprooted a marijuana garden run by patients, seized the records of a doctor who recommended the drug and raided a West Hollywood "cannabis club" that city officials had helped set up. The raids are "indicative that we have not lost our priorities in other areas since Sept. 11," a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman said. No? Then there's this item: Six Middle Eastern men carrying box cutters and photographs of both a nuclear-power plant in Florida and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline were stopped by police in the Midwest last week and then - incredibly - released by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents. FBI Director Robert Mueller was said to be furious. FBI agents are now searching for the men. These news stories are unrelated - except in this respect: This nation is in a fight for its continued existence, and some people who should know better still don't get it. Yes, federal drug laws do supersede the pro-marijuana voter initiatives in eight states - but certainly, the U.S. Justice Department has more important things to do right now than bust sick people for smoking marijuana. Furthermore, the simple fact that this nation has legions of dogs specially trained to detect marijuana but only a fraction of the vaccine doses that would be needed to protect the country in the event of a smallpox attack speaks volumes about how skewed priorities have been for some time. Our advice: Lay off the cannabis clubs for the moment and dispatch those federal agents (and maybe the pot-sniffing dogs) to the search for the six Middle Eastern men with box cutters and photographs of the nuclear power plant and the Alaskan pipeline. To borrow a phrase from a presidential campaign of yore: It's the terrorism, stupid. Press Plus (NJ) Published: November 2, 2001 Copyright: 1998-2001 South Jersey Publishing Co. Contact: letters@pressplus.com Website: http://www.pressplus.com/ Related Articles & Web Site: Medicinal Cannabis Research Links http://freedomtoexhale.com/research.htm