David Sforza needs to roll a j and sit this one out because he did a poor job of describing his fellow Santa Barbarians (“A Joint Rolled Is a Body Buried,” Daily Nexus, April 22). I understand that the drug war happening in Mexico right now is a very sad and scary event, but Sforza should know that we stoners do our part to take money OUT of the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How? Californians simply buy decent pot.

By his vague, though admittedly accurate, mention of our “state of euphoria,” I can tell that Sforza has never smoked any Mexican shag. It’s shitty, to be honest. Mexico has neither the climate nor the invested care to grow any good pot. Additionally, the process of transporting marijuana out of Mexico takes its toll on the quality of the product. It can be victim to hasty curing, intense compaction and is sometimes hidden in other goods which produce strong odors to hide the smell of the weed, which ultimately leaves the bud smelling like whatever it was hidden in (fertilizer, anyone?). It’s called Mexican dirt-weed for a reason.

Weed grown in California, especially that NorCal dank shit, is grown with care and respect for both the producer and the customer, and it’s grown with SCIENCE! If you ever get a chance to meet somebody who has grown pot commercially, they will tell you that they are always keeping up with the latest growing techniques, often innovated by pothead college kids or pothead college graduates. Many producers are organic, the title meaning everything it does when applied to organic coffee or bananas. It is grown without harmful pesticides and chemicals. This product is then sold to pot clubs (or your local pot dealer!) and then to the customer. Nobody is exploited or killed in the process.

As for Sforza, please don’t push that bad mojo on us stoners. We are not murderers, nor do we support any of the goings on in Mexico. Yet we will not cower before intolerant politicians, heinous cartels or a largely misinformed public. You are right when you say that nobody should financially support this network of murderous criminals, and we don’t. There is a simple solution that most of us utilize without even realizing it. Don’t want to be responsible for the deaths of Mexican police officers, misguided teenagers, and innocent people? Buy local, buy Californian, buy medical.