Pubdate: Sat, 11 Nov 2000
Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)
Copyright: 2000 The Providence Journal Company
Contact:  75 Fountain St., Providence RI 02902
Website: http://www.projo.com/
Author: Gary Storck

INNOCENT VICTIM OF DRUG WAR

Regarding your Oct. 6 news story, " 'Compassionate release' may come in 
time for Glancy to die in R.I.": If serious illness is a criterion for 
releasing federal prisoners, then it is time for federal authorities to 
release Rhode Island native and childhood cancer survivor Todd McCormick 
from a federal prison in California, where he has been in solitary 
confinement for several months.

Todd is a medical marijuana patient and victim of the Clinton-Gore 
administration's failed "War on Drugs." Todd has a severe spinal condition, 
tumors, cancer and the pelvis of a nine-year-old. His co-defendant, the 
late author Peter Mcwilliams, an AIDS/cancer patient, choked to death on 
his own vomit last June, because a federal judge ordered him not to use the 
medical marijuana he needed to keep his AIDS medications down while on bail 
awaiting sentencing.

Todd and Peter's so-called crimes have no victim. They are the victims of a 
government so married to marijuana prohibition and the failed war on drugs 
that sick people are criminalized and imprisoned. Why isn't U.S. Rep. 
Patrick Kennedy standing up for Todd and other victims of this cruel war on 
the sick and dying? Why are federal authorities releasing real criminals 
like Glancy, who betrayed the public trust, while locking up the sick and 
dying for using the medicine that works best for them?

GARY STORCK

Madison, Wisc.
- ---
MAP posted-by: GD