McEvers well qualified for court

On Nov. 6, 2018, the voters of North Dakota will be electing a candidate for the North Dakota Supreme Court. Justice Lisa McEvers is on the non-party ballot for reelection to that 10-year term. She has served with distinction on the Court for more than four years; has participated in over 1,000 oral arguments; and has authored over 170 written opinions.

Justice McEvers was appointed in 2014 by Gov. Dalrymple with the qualifications of having a business administration degree and law degree from the University of North Dakota. She practiced as a private attorney for many years and then served as an assistant state’s attorney in Cass County. She served the people of the State of North Dakota with honor and distinction first as Commission of Labor for five years and then as a District Judge for four years, handling all types of cases.

Recently the State Bar Association conducted a poll of 386 lawyers from across the state. The results of that poll were just released. The results were:

Knowledge of the law: McEvers 86% excellent or good, her opponent 13%

Professional competence: McEvers excellent or good, her opponent 8.4%

Legal experience: McEvers 85%, her opponent 20%

Judicial temperament: McEvers 86.3% excellent or good, her opponent 5.4%

Ability to avoid influence from outside pressures: McEvers 85.2%, her opponent 7.7%

And finally, Integrity and moral character: McEvers 82.5%, her opponent 9.6%

It is quite clear that Justice McEvers is by far the better candidate for the office of North Dakota Supreme Court Justice. I urge each voter to consider the ability of the candidates as outlined above and vote for Justice Lisa McEvers.

Michael S. McIntee,

Bottineau

Vote ‘yes’ on Measure 3

As parents and grandparents, we want our children to be safe from harm. We do not want them to use alcohol, tobacco or marijuana. However, we are not naive; we know that some of our children will make bad choices. Tobacco and alcohol are manufactured and sold by ethical businesses who must meet certain standards before they can be offered to the public. Prohibited products like marijuana are not subject to those same standards therefore, our children are at risk for death, imprisonment or impaired bodies and minds.

Imagine your grandmother, 80 years old, going to a street corner to buy Prilosec and Xanax from a 19-year-old who offers the two drugs in a crumpled plastic bag with no markings, labels or dosage amounts and handles it all with dirty hands.

This is the type of dealer your kids will buy their prohibited drugs from.

Children can access marijuana anywhere because it is not sold in stores — it is sold on street corners and in schools.

The seller has no obligation to prove dose or sanitation. The seller does not care how old the customer is. The quantity of the dose is unknown. The quality of the produce is unknown. The cleanliness of the product is unknown.

When a child approaches a seller for marijuana, the seller would rather sell something highly addictive so that the customer comes back more often. The seller will typically have other drugs to offer including methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine, speed, downers and various legal drugs like Valium or Ativan. Therefore, marijuana is a gateway drug to other illegal drugs as long as it remains illegal.

Let’s say that, regrettably, your child does make an error and buys an illegal drug. If your child is one of the unlucky ones to be caught by law enforcement, the penalty is to be locked in a cage as punishment. Under current law, your child will have a felony status permanently attached to his name which will make employment very difficult.

Because marijuana is illegal, when a problem occurs the child is likely to be deceptive instead of helpful.

Marijuana can be a stimulant while alcohol is a depressant, therefore the stimulation is entirely different. Studies show that someone high on marijuana will drive slowly and carefully. The influence of alcohol typically causes more aggression and reckless driver behavior.

Marijuana has never killed anyone by consuming too much.

After legalization, most users will never smoke it again. Prohibition only offers marijuana in dry, smokable leaf form. The free market offers marijuana as an edible like pills, capsules, cookies or candy, a transdermal patch, vapor, etc.

For thousands of years, the human race has used marijuana as a medicine. There are thousands of receptors in the human body ready to incorporate its use. Man made drugs have no receptors in the human body, therefore pharmaceutical drugs have bizarre and upsetting symptoms.

The drug trade has long been a source of income for organized crime. But now that four states have legalized marijuana, domestic product is beating imported Mexican marijuana in both price and quality. Mexican farmers growing for the vicious violent drug cartels have seen their returns drop from $100 per kilo to under $25 Legalization isn’t going to put the cartels out of business-they’re criminals who will turn to other crimes for their funding. But we can take from them the market for the most widely-used drug and shrink their customer base substantially. Here’s another way to look at it: Why should we continue to give business opportunities to violent criminals who don’t pay taxes and follow no regulations?

For these reasons, I encourage you to vote Yes on Measure #3 to make marijuana legal in North Dakota.

Marty Riske,

Fargo