Pubdate: Mon, 24 Nov 2008
Source: Montgomery Advertiser (AL)
Copyright: 2008 The Advertiser Co.
Contact: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/customerservice/letter.htm
Website: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1088
Author: Loretta Nall
Note: Letters from the newspaper's circulation area receive publishing
priority

STATE SHOULD JOIN MARIJUANA LIST

Michigan voters this month approved a measure that will protect
patients who use marijuana on the recommendation of a licensed physician.

Michigan thus became the 13th state in the United States to remove
penalties for the use of medical marijuana. Nearly 25 percent of all
Americans now live in a medical marijuana state. Marijuana is a safe,
effective and inexpensive therapeutic agent that eventually will be
legal for patients throughout the country to use.

The Alabama Compassionate Care Act has been tied up in legislative
committees for four years, despite polls that show 76 percent voter
approval. This bill would allow patients to use marijuana when a
licensed physician recommends it. Alabama patients would be issued
state ID cards so law enforcement personnel could easily see they are
legal medical marijuana users.

The American College of Physicians, the American Nurses Association,
the American Public Health Association, the Leukemia and Lymphoma
Society and many other professional health care organizations have
endorsed medical marijuana.

Sadly, Alabama still arrests and prosecutes patients for using medical
marijuana. How long will it take Alabama to give her sick and dying
citizens the same rights that other Americans have? Are Alabama
patients less deserving of relief than the citizens of the 13 states
where medical marijuana is now legal?

Please contact your representative in Montgomery and ask them to
support the Compassionate Care Act in the 2009 legislative session.
Loretta Nall Executive director Alabama for Compassionate Care
Alexander City.

Loretta Nall
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin