Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find comments from readers on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email editor@valleyadvocate.com and put “BackTalk” or “letter to the editor” in the subject.
Weed in the Streets (via Facebook)
Some reactions to “Smoking Weed in Public: It’s illegal, but that hasn’t stopped people from lighting up,” Aug. 31.-Sept. 6, 2017, pulled from our Facebook page.
Betty Freeman: I see people smoking pot a lot while driving. I work at a full serve gas station and after weed was legalized we 
saw it a lot more. People coming to get gas smoking out of a bong, smoking joints and blunts. It doesn’t bother me at all except when people dump out the blunt guts on the ground. Lol
Leslie Sullivan Sachs: My husband has a med card for it & I still get paranoid when he smokes it in our yard. Old habits die hard.
John M. O’Boyle: I absolutely despise the idea of smoking pot in public! If I’m walking around with my family I shouldn’t have to smell the crap, I shouldn’t have to watch someone getting high and I shouldn’t have to explain the whole goddamn thing to my kids!
— Brian Babcock: While I have no issue with pot or it’s legality I agree 100%. My kids don’t need to smell it in public.
— Toni Maestas: But do you take your children to public places where alcohol is served? Please explain the difference?
— John M. O’Boyle: Sure. The difference is when someone is drinking a beer or glass of wine, you can’t smell it and it doesn’t make a giant cloud of smoke. Where as smoking marijuana, and for that matter disgusting, gross cigarettes, do. That is my point.
— Kathy Ott Sader: Or this way … when people are drinking, I am not drinking their drink with them … when people are smoking cigarettes or whatever they are forcing me to breathe it and that enters my body.
Kamani Dah Jeff: Wypipo and their privilege. At least she was honest about it.
A New Name for Amherst (via Facebook)
And now, some reactions to “Between the Lines: Actually, Let’s Talk About Renaming Amherst,” Aug. 31.-Sept. 6, 2017, pulled from our Facebook page.
Jeffrey Amherst
Lisa B Hawkes: I would have no problem renaming Turners Falls.
Bob Westfall: I would have a big problem renaming any town that is targeted by attention seeking social justice warriors. While we’re at it, let’s just rename all 50 states. … change the boarders back to what the tribal nations were in 1492 … and use those nations.
— Anne Wellington: Many States names are derivations of native names. Alaska, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio to name a few
— Lisa B Hawkes: Bob likes his towns to be named after mass murders. To each their own.
Stacey Cooney: Having a conversation about our sordid history shouldn’t be an ultra liberal thing. It should be a thing all Americans want to do. We should educate ourselves and lift ourselves up from our racist, genocidal past. I don’t necessarily agree with renaming the town, but it’s not foolish to talk about it.
Jane Lefebvre: We are witnessing the calculated destruction of not only our constitutional freedoms but of Western Civilization. It won’t be long before the Constitution is declared invalid because it was written by slave-owners.
— Steve William Lindsey: Yeah. They want our guns.
— Stephanie Hurtado: Screw that! History is history … Leave things the way they are … You don’t like it get out! Enough babying everyone!
— Jason Burke Murphy: No amendments, then? They invalidate sections of the Constitution. For instance, slavery is abolished. That was important.
— Matthew Tas: All cities and parks should be named alpha numerically. Amherst can be Town No. 5 or something.
Matt Kay: See, but Amherst wasn’t named during the Civil Rights period and erected solely to stick a thumb in the eye of black people, so …
Jeff Shaw: I am blown away here … Sometimes, just once in a while it would be nice to see a journalist or news outlet not pander to the emotional hot topic of the day. I don’t know, maybe even a little original thought even.
Steve William Lindsey: Change it. I like the suggestion of “Emily.” Yes “Amherst” has a nice sound to it. More so than “Goebbels.” But the idea is the same. Do not reward and honor darkness.
