Ban on evictions unfairly punishes SC landlords who are doing the right thing

On evictions

While it may protect one group, the new eviction ban simply makes victims of landlords.

Not all landlords are the “slumlords” who are often depicted in movies.

Many landlords are just military personnel who like the area, purchase homes and then have to ship out — so they decide to rent out their homes until they eventually retire and return.

If they and other landlords don’t pay their mortgages, they face all types of potential problems.

Yet if tenants don’t pay their rent, they can still stay in the properties while making demands about repairs.

How is this fair?

Charels Moran, Leesville

On Trump, SC

South Carolina is playing the fool by backing President Donald Trump.

Last month Trump tweeted that a “deep state” sect is intentionally complicating vaccine trials, purportedly to hurt his re-election bid. Does this have any basis in reality?

Here in South Carolina, VitaLink Research is currently conducting a Phase III clinical trial as part of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine development; it has even started administering treatments as part of the study.

Considering that the virus was completely undiscovered until December 2019, the typical years or decades that a new vaccine would spend in trial phases is being condensed into less than 12 months.

This is impressive but unsurprising since the Trump administration’s own initiative to develop and implement a vaccine by January 2021 is named “Operation Warp Speed.”

This is yet another example of Trump’s consistent disparaging of scientists, researchers and public health experts to the detriment of the nation.

South Carolina is a historically red state that Trump carried in the 2016 election, and our continued support of the president — despite his disposition towards the scientific disciplines — is showing that we will follow him off a cliff, facts be damned.

Joshua Walters, Anderson

On cannabis

I find the “harmful effects of ‘marijuana’” argument to be disingenuous given what we have known for decades about everything from cigarettes to alcohol to prescription drugs.

In addition we can see that the criminalization of cannabis is analogous to modern-day Jim Crow; the prohibitions on cannabis are excessively leveraged against people of color — and this must change with our generation.

State Sen. Tom Davis is working on a medical cannabis bill in the General Assembly; meanwhile, the South Carolina Medical Association is taking a hard position against combustible, or smokable, forms of cannabis and emphasizing edible forms as a delivery method.

But I am alarmed that the medical association has failed to acknowledge that when eaten, cannabis is metabolized by the body differently than when it is smoked.

When cannabis is eaten, the liver produces a metabolite called 11-Hydroxy-THC.

You may know about Delta-9-THC, which is responsible for the “high” that comes from smoking cannabis. But 11-Hydroxy-THC, is much stronger; in fact it is what has led to panic attacks and hospitalizations in other areas.

If the South Carolina Medical Association won’t acknowledge the differences between eating and smoking cannabis, then I question both its competence and objectivity.

Whit Ashley,, Columbia