Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jun 2014
Source: Florida Today (Melbourne, FL)
Copyright: 2014 Florida Today
Contact: http://www.floridatoday.com/content/forms/services/letters.shtml
Website: http://www.floridatoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/532
Author: James Stubbins

MEDICAL POT HELPED SAVE READER'S LIFE

The "Don't Let Florida Go to Pot" campaign is going into full crisis 
mode in its drive to deny sick Floridians their right to effective 
treatment. This group's scare tactics are worthy of the 1934 
Congress, which initiated anti-hemp prohibition with no research on 
the subject. If hemp was legal to cultivate, we could stop cutting 
down trees to make paper.

Chemotherapy causes weight loss, sometimes to life-threatening 
levels. Epileptic seizures often respond only to marijuana-based 
drugs. Migraines are real, and seldom respond to conventional medicine.

The insensitivity and cruelty of the deniers is beyond reason.

Medicinal pot actually relaxes the digestive tract, allowing tightly 
bound intestines to pass food and make room for more to be ingested. 
I would be dead today if I had not used it while on chemo from 1996 
to 1999, when my weight dropped to less than 100 pounds (I'm 5'8" and 
currently weigh 140 pounds). The people I had to deal with and the 
places I had to go to procure supplies can be scary for a person in a 
weakened state.

The real gateway drugs are tobacco and alcohol, but they have 
big-money lobbyists on their payroll and are immune to effective control.

Prohibition of marijuana has filled our jails with otherwise 
law-abiding citizens. The time has come to make the jails back into a 
place where only criminals can be found, rather than their current 
function of warehousing citizens who resist social engineering 
attempts by legislators.

Floridians are too smart to let themselves be misled any longer.

James Stubbins,

Melbourne
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom