Pubdate: Thu, 09 Jun 2005
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact:  http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Eric A. Voth, M.D.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n896/a03.html

LET SCIENCE HAVE SAY

Congratulations to the U.S. Supreme Court for a ruling that leaves it to 
Congress to determine how the medical application of marijuana is to be 
handled.

The medical-excuse movement is out of control and creating an atmosphere of 
medicine by popular vote. Marijuana advocates, not respected scientists and 
physicians, are driving this issue.

Marijuana is not medicine. It is an impure, smoked, herbal substance that 
has substantial side effects and substantial potential for abuse.

The most appropriate direction is to have the Food and Drug Administration 
evaluate and approve substances that are isolated from marijuana or 
synthesized to mimic the beneficial components through their normal careful 
processes. That way science, and not emotional politics, will govern what 
becomes medicine.

Eric A. Voth, M.D.

Chairman

The Institute on Global Drug Policy

St. Petersburg, Fla.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom