Letters 04-27-2000

I have used (and probably will again) GBL at several electronic companies I have worked for. It is used to clean printed circuit boards (PCBs), among other things.

I'm more outraged how the media simply repeat what the DEA tells them. For example, originally they said he had pipe bombs and a meth lab in his garage! They dropped the meth lab, but the pipe bomb thing is still mentioned. Fact is, he had a canister of smokeless powder (I saw the inventory taken by the DEA; it is sitting here at my desk) used to repack bullets for a registered gun that he owns. The repacking machine and the powder were given to him by one of his Mensa friends.

Bryan Wilcutt
Phoenix

Ah, yes, another high-profile arrest by the DEA to justify their existence. I wonder if they called the television news stations before or after the arrest. Was this the DEA equivalent of a "Your Tax Dollars at Work" sign on a torn-up road? If the government wants to erect another war-on-drugs sign, they should not paint it with the blood of one of its presumed-innocent-until-proven-guilty citizens.

Bill Rouse
Phoenix

Twenty years ago, in my sophomore year at college, I took the dreaded Philosophy 101. The instructor, during a debate, stated that the (then) U.S.S.R. and the United States would become closer and closer every year til you almost could not tell them apart "politically." We all laughed, but it seems he was a visionary.

Richard Lewis
via Internet

I have to comment on the views of one bureaucrat. Your story states: "Jim Molesa, a special agent with the Phoenix DEA, notes that the threefold price hike alone indicates that Hall knew he was dealing a black-market item."

With that logic, I am in very serious trouble. Those vinyl records I bought at the thrift store for 49 cents and auctioned off on eBay for prices varying from $4 to $32 far exceed the threefold increase. Guess the jackbooted thugs will be coming for me next. With all the resources the government has (based on money torn from us under threat and duress), the feds will likely ensure I disappear permanently since my profit margin indicates a Calit Cartel-like operation.

Not that I agree with what Michael Hall did, but, hey, they let O.J. drink orange juice and call mom! You or I would have been tossed to the ground, handcuffed and drug away. There are many examples of the "privileged class" getting special treatment. How long are the American people gonna let this continue?

Scott Kelley
via Internet