Pubdate: Thu, 19 Apr 2001
Source: Otago Daily Times (New Zealand)
Copyright: Allied Press Limited, 2001
Contact:  http://www2.odt.co.nz
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/925
Author: Jason Baker-Sherman
Note: Headline supplied by newshawk
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

CANNABIS ALSO MEDICINE AND HEALTH FOOD

HOW IRONIC you should make Dick Taylor's reassurance that exercise was not 
the cause of his heart problem, front-page news ( ODT , 17.3.01), while my 
letter (5.4.01) offering a plausible explanation, the consumption of 
non-foods like margarine, and a possible solution, the eating of hemp seed, 
was relegated to the back of the paper, when it was eventually published.

Being athletes, Mr Taylor (52) and his two late colleagues (47 and 51) were 
obviously fit and probably followed the dietary advice currently en vogue, 
but still they suffered a now-common disease that was virtually unknown 100 
years ago.

In 1950, Albert Einstein told the American Medical Association, "You look 
like scientists, you talk like scientists, you use scientific methods but 
you are not scientists".

This is especially true of today's scientists and their research, when 
funding is provided by businesses who will obviously want a financial 
return on their "investment".

Einstein also believed that no problem could be solved by the consciousness 
that created it.

Thus modern health science with its emphasis on synthetic foods and 
medicines, expensive treatments and genetic engineering will not cure 
"modern" disease but instead exacerbate it.

The cannabis plant, on the other hand, has served the human race very well 
for many millennia.

Not only is it a relatively safe recreational drug, cannabis is also a 
medicine and health food, and can provide natural alternatives to many of 
the toxic substances with which we endanger our health.

Jason Baker-Sherman, Dalmore

[Abridged. - Ed.]
- ---
MAP posted-by: GD