Mark Robichaux is right about the urgency of protecting Atlantic menhaden in his Aug. 19 online op-ed, “This little fish anchors the East Coast food web. A fight over it is brewing.” This fish is foundational to the food chain and feeds a wide variety of animals, including striped bass, osprey and whales.
Saving menhaden helps save the bay. Now, evidence of a crisis is impossible to ignore. Osprey chicks are starving to death at high rates. Catches have plummeted for small-scale menhaden fishermen. The Chesapeake Bay needs help.
Leaving more menhaden in the water is one of the fastest ways to benefit the ecosystem, and this strategy is supported by 92 percent of Virginia voters, according to a poll commissioned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The industry will say more science is needed to act. But research on menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay was delayed for years.
Waiting indefinitely while the bay circles the drain is irresponsible. It needs action today, before red flags turn into irreversible damage.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will soon seek public comment on a proposal that could cut the Chesapeake Bay’s industrial menhaden harvest by up to half. Everyone who cares about thriving waterways should tell the commission to approve conservation-minded reforms to protect the bay, coastal communities and the thousands of jobs that depend on a healthy ecosystem.
Will Poston, Virginia Beach
The writer is the forage campaign manager at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The National Fisheries Institute, which I lead, welcomes genuine calls for improved fishery management grounded in science. But no one should confuse science with calls to bypass the nation’s time-tested fishery management system.
The National Marine Fisheries Service and its fishery management councils have concluded that the Atlantic Coast and Gulf Coast menhaden fisheries are healthy and responsibly managed for commercial as well as sportfishing uses. In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most recent stock assessment states that “Atlantic menhaden are not overfished and that overfishing is not occurring.” Fishery management measures — and the hard work of supplying the world’s healthiest animal protein — ought to be left to the professionals.
Lisa Wallenda Picard, Reston
The writer is the president and chief executive of the National Fisheries Institute.
Legalized cannabis is better
The cannabis industry shares the priorities described by George F. Will in his Aug. 20 column, “Rethinking the haphazard marijuana social experiment”: protecting children, strengthening public safety, reducing crime and minimizing the harms of misuse. But it disagrees with him on the most effective approach to accomplishing them.
Cannabis legalization reallocated demand from criminal organizations to storefronts with age verification, testing and labeling standards, and it has created more than 400,000 jobs and more than $28 billion in tax revenue since 2014.
Will is concerned that potency drives health risks, but inhaled high-potency cannabis products can actually reduce smoke exposure compared with lower-potency ones.
Will framed alcohol as a “private right” that is too embedded to extirpate, yet cannabis and its therapeutic value have been equally embedded. Cannabis products were listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia until 1942. The Food and Drug Administration approved the THC-based dronabinol for chemotherapy-induced nausea in 1985 and the CBD-based Epidiolex for epilepsy in 2018.
Will highlighted Mark Kleiman’s observation that society can choose the problems of legalization or those of prohibition. That’s true: Prohibition of alcohol or cannabis yields contaminated products, well-funded criminal organizations and forgone tax revenue. Cannabis prohibition also means withholding medicine from people who need it.
Adam Rosenberg, New York
The writer is the chair of the board of the National Cannabis Industry Association.
George F. Will sensibly noted in his Aug. 20 column that marijuana use, like alcohol use, has become a private right that is too embedded in society to eliminate. However, he fails to note the advantages of marijuana legalization. Ten years of legalization have brought California an 86 percent decline in marijuana arrests, more than 57,000 legal jobs created and $8 billion in tax revenue. Meanwhile, alcohol use has declined, and countless patients have found a substitute for opiates and other drugs in the treatment of chronic pain and other conditions. No wonder Massachusetts voters will likely decline to re-criminalize.
Dale Gieringer, Oakland
The writer is the director of the California National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws.
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