The Rumford Falls Times highlighted an article “Recommendations made during opiate forum” (May 5).

Later in the day, Gary Dolloff, chairman of Greater Rumford Community Center, posted on Facebook that a marijuana operation in an adjoining building was emitting fumes so strong that children were becoming ill during programs, staff is overwhelmed by the stench and commercial tenants are losing customers. There is a school less than a block away. The area is supposed to be a drug-free zone.

I am not at all surprised by any of this as the lives of everyone in my single and multi-unit residential drug-free zone neighborhood, one block from Hope Association and Hosmer Field, less than two blocks from Rumford Elementary School and Three Fields, have been taken over by a similar considerable drug production and processing operation.

Maine’s medical marijuana law is a joke — a free pass to anyone with a few hundred dollars to buy a certificate from a doctor. It is as easy as the 80 percent of opioid addicts who get addicting prescriptions from a doctor (source: Maine Opioid Collaborative).

The marijuana law, like the lax opioid prescription controls, is ruining the lives not only of those who make the choice to use, but also sober, law-abiding citizens and especially children. Both must be changed immediately.

Candice Casey, Rumford

Editor’s note: The medical marijuana operations mentioned above are licensed by the Department of Health and Human Services for caregivers to grow a limited number of plants for specific clients. There is no ordinance and no zoning in Rumford that prohibits the location of licensed operations.