Pubdate: Sun, 23 Oct 2005
Source: Albany Democrat-Herald (OR)
Contact: http://www.mvonline.com/support/contact/DHedletters.php
Copyright: 2005 Lee Enterprises
Website: http://www.democratherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/7
Author: Gary Storck
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n000/a339.html

IN DEFENSE OF MEDICAL POT

The Democrat-Herald itself looks silly with your attack on Oregon's
medical marijuana law in a recent opinion piece, "Weird? And yet we
like Oregon" (Oct. 16).

Evidently the author of the column has never been seriously ill or had
a family member or loved one face serious illness or they would not be
calling this compassionate, democratically passed law silly.

Here in Wisconsin, where the legislature has so far failed to act on
medical marijuana, the need for such a law is great. Patients are
still arrested, while others have no safe source for this therapy.
Oregon voters understood this when they passed OMMA in 1998. Even the
General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress,
found Oregon's medical marijuana law was working mostly as intended.

If doctors can prescribe highly addictive drugs like Oxycontin or
morphine with a high potential for abuse, along with toxic chemical
and radiation treatments, all potentially lethal, why shouldn't
patients be able to use a non-toxic God-given herb shown to be an
effective treatment for hundreds of medical conditions?

Gary Storck, Is My Medicine Legal Yet?, Madison, Wis.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake