According to state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg and Globe business columnist Shirley Leung, we should ban home cultivation of marijuana, in part because it would hurt the retail industry. Should we ban home cooking because it hurts restaurants?

Home cultivation will serve as a check on high prices, to be sure, but that’s only a bad thing if consumers are the enemy.

As for home-grow criminal enterprises, or “grow houses,’’ they’ve been around for a long time and remain illegal under the new law. The existence of large-scale illegal operations is no reason that citizens growing marijuana for their own use should have to worry about the police breaking down the door.

Andy Gaus

Boston