Pubdate: Tue, 29 Oct 2013
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2013 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/
Website: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Note: Accepts letters to the editor from Arkansas residents only
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n493/a05.html
Author: Mike Tripp

AN EFFECTIVE TREATMENT

While reading the recent editorial vilifying medical marijuana, I 
kept expecting the writer to claim it would cause madness and for my 
babies to be born naked.

Until you watch someone you love dying in misery, it's easy to be dismissive.

Marijuana was used for thousands of years as a medicine. It was 
standard in American pharmacies until the 1930s when it was outlawed, 
but not because it was a dangerous drug. Recently the truth has come 
to the surface again, not via High Times Magazine, but from the 
National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, and 
Alzheimer's researchers. Studies have shown that cannabis can kill 
cancer cells. Researchers have declared that it works better than the 
best-selling Alzheimer's drug, Aricept, at slowing the progression of 
the disease. The tremors of Parkinson's disease and multiple 
sclerosis are controlled better by cannabis than with drugs with none 
of the side effects caused by those drugs. Its efficacy is well-known 
to cancer patients suffering from nausea and wasting syndrome.

Your editorial reeks of hysterical ignorance.

Doctors, not legislators, should make the decisions as to what is in 
a patient's best interest. If the best that you can do is worry what 
will keep Little Jenny out of Aunt Sally's purse, may I point out 
that Aunt Sally's cannabis won't kill Little Jenny like Aunt Sally's 
Oxycodone? Cannabis has never killed anyone, unlike our sacred 
poisons, alcohol and tobacco. Shame on you. When the time comes, for 
compassion's sake, please just say yes to medical marijuana.

MIKE TRIPP

Royal
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom