Pubdate: Sun, 01 May 2011
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2011 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact:  http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Note: Letters from newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority
Author: Robert Galia
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n268/a08.html

CANNABIS AS MEDICINE UNDERMINED

Regarding the letter "Don't back down to marijuana growers": I believe
I speak for all medical cannabis patients, and those who grow for
them, when I say we resent the author's inference that we are
anti-Christian, lawless thugs. I happen to work in a medical cannabis
dispensary/collective and have come to know thousands of patients and
growers. They are good, hard-working people, indistinguishable from
the population as a whole, except that they have chosen cannabis as a
way to relieve pain and stress, to help them sleep, or eat, etc. The
list is growing every day.

This kind of thinking is the result of two things: Local law
enforcement's false assessment that cannabis is not a medicine, and
our federal government's misguided attempts at vilifying something
they view as possibly subversive - with financial support from many
and various corporations with a stake in the matter (liquor and
pharmaceutical companies are two that come to mind).

Although, like the author says, cannabis patients are in the minority,
99 percent of the people I talk to strongly believe that it should be
made available to qualified patients. Please get educated and stop
spreading the cannabis is evil myth.

Robert Galia, Chico 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake