To the Editor:

We don't wait for the times to change, but rather we can change this very moment in time. There are some who drift and never do anything to bring about change. Others feel they must stand up for what they believe to be just and right no matter the cost.

The winds of change concerning the legalization of medical marijuana here in Illinois have come. It is the humane thing to do for the patients of Illinois.

Please give the citizens of our state the option to choose between the many dangerous and addictive drugs such as morphine, oxycontin, dilaudid, etc., or medical marijuana.

Please call your state representative and ask them to vote "yes" on Senate Bill 1381.

Robert Day

Huntley

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I'm writing about Robert Sharpe's thoughtful June 21 letter to Fence Post, "Marijuana ban isn't working."

The prohibition of recreational marijuana is not the proper role of a free country's government. Every justification for the prohibition of marijuana can also be made for the prohibition of hot dogs, cheeseburgers and a long list of other unhealthy foods.

Heart disease kills a lot more people than illegal drugs. Do we want our police arresting and jailing people for eating unhealthy foods? I hope not. Do we want our police arresting each other for eating doughnuts? Perhaps.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

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Heroin abuse in the Chicago area has gotten worse over the last decade, creating a crisis that is perhaps more extreme than anywhere else in the country, Roosevelt University researchers conclude in a new study.

The report, to be released Monday, finds that the area has seen an increase in people admitted to emergency rooms for heroin-related problems. It now has more than any other metropolitan area.

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I write today in response to Kirk Boyenga?s Thursday letter ?Put OK of medical marijuana off for now?). Boyenga is troubled by the fact that our legislators are working to allow certain types of medical patients access to medical cannabis.

First, he would have us wait for the FDA to complete studies of cannabis, and, secondly, we should hold off until the budget is fixed.

I would be very pleased if Boyenga could provide me with a rough idea of exactly when the FDA is going to begin these studies, let alone come to a conclusion. We have been asking for this testing for 40 years and absolutely nothing has been done. To use this as an excuse to withhold needed medicine from people who are suffering every hour of the day is a rather cruel blow.

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Study | Area Leads U.S. in ER Treatment As Suburban Deaths Soar

More people in Chicago and its suburbs are admitted to hospital emergency rooms for heroin use than in any other major city, and heroin is now the most common illegal substance for which people in Illinois enter drug treatment, a new study shows.

In addition, heroin-related deaths have risen sharply in the collar counties, as use of the drug continues to expand among young, white suburbanites.

These are among the key findings from a report released today by Roosevelt University's Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy.

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Once depicted as a drug relegated to the alleys of poor, rough, seedy, urban environs, heroin has found a new and thriving home in the suburbs.

Huge increases in heroin use among whites, suburbanites and teenagers are a major factor in why the Chicago area suffers what might be the nation's worst heroin problem, according to a new study released today.

"It's cheaper than a six-pack of beer and it's easier to get. Drug dealers don't ask for I.D.," says Kathleen Kane-Willis, one of the authors of the Roosevelt University report on heroin use in Illinois from 1998 to 2008.

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The tobacco companies had to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to the states because during civil trials, juries found the tobacco companies libel because lawyers convinced the juries that smoking caused lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and death.

Since these jury awards, a lot of states have banned smoking in public places because of the effect smoke has on people.

Now I read that people are pushing for medical marijuana use. Reason: to ease aches and pains. What's wrong with Advil, Tylenol, aspirin, etc.?

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Thank you for your recent editorial supporting access to medical cannabis in Illinois.

It is absurd that Illinois residents who use cannabis with the recommendation of their doctor are still considered criminals. When I first started getting involved in the medical cannabis movement in Illinois, state Rep. Larry McKeon was championing the legislation. While we have made progress in the legislature with this bill, it is still not a law and Rep. McKeon unfortunately passed away two years ago.

How much longer will patients have to be patient waiting for the political will to come around on this issue? How many more people will suffer without access to this medicine? How many more people will die because Illinois lawmakers are more concerned about getting re-elected than providing a low-cost and safe medicine to the ill in this state?

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To the Editor:

I am tired of the negativity in current headlines concerning marijuana. I advocate organizing the McHenry County Cannabis Co-operative.

Hypocritical marijuana-prohibition laws discourage networking and prevent establishment of legal businesses. Cannabis proponents are therefore isolated and oppressed Americans. But our interests could bring us together: helping individuals and the community to thrive.

Legalization would eliminate the enormous burden of controlling importation and conversely would produce tax revenue. Legalization would get rid of marijuana's gateway status; taking it out of the hands of the underworld and making it as legal as alcohol, which makes sense because pot is far less dangerous than beer.

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Your endorsement Friday of medical marijuana in Illinois is simply mind-boggling.

The clinical evidence of any medicinal benefit from marijuana is so limited that the American Society of Addiction Medicine has come out very strongly against any efforts to bypass established FDA procedures for testing. The United States has one of the best systems in the world for assessing and proving the worth of drugs. To bypass those methods by political fiat is a step backward to selling snake oil and also a step away from high-quality health care.

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Marijuana law on books but never implemented Sheriff's office continues to arrest, rather than ticket, minor offenders

Nearly a year after the Cook County Board passed a controversial ordinance allowing sheriff's police to ticket pot smokers for minor possession instead of arresting them, police have yet to issue a single ticket.

County commissioners made headlines last July when they quietly passed the ordinance that gave officers the choice to either arrest people in unincorporated areas possessing 10 grams or less of marijuana, or to hand out tickets for $200 within the county's unincorporated areas.

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Regarding Dora Dixie and Pete Bensinger's June 2nd op-ed, if health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best.

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When will we accept that America's war on drugs is over -- we lost -- and it's time to get real about our drug laws?

Medical marijuana should be legalized. Pot more generally should be decriminalized. And the carnage in our streets and in Mexico begs that we rethink our nation's approach to the sale and use of more serious drugs as well.

The evidence of failure of strict prohibition is every day in the news.

Over the weekend, 52 people were shot in Chicago, a stunning tally that the police blame in large part on gangs.

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Thank you for your recent guest editorials on the bad and compassionate sense of legalizing marijuana for medical use. I am a person that has had two car accidents and three cervical surgeries in the last three years and has had to live with chronic pain all the time and every day.

I do not know if marijuana would help relieve my pain, but considering the end results from the current medication I am on (which could be addiction and or liver damage), I strongly agree that marijuana is a compassionate and safer way of treating this condition. I support medical marijuana if the sale is controlled to screened patients and I appreciate the safety factor that patients can grow their own balm. In fact, if there is poisoned marijuana coming from Mexico as your guest stated, it only makes more sense to let patients grow it in their homes for self-consumption.

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DEBATE OVER whether Illinois should join the 14 states that allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has become a fairly regular feature of Illinois General Assembly legislative sessions in recent years.

This year was no exception. Senate Bill 1381, which would establish a medical marijuana system in Illinois and passed the Senate a year ago, languished in the House, where it remains in the Rules Committee. Its sponsors feared it might not pass if called for a vote, in no small part because some members were reluctant to endorse a potentially controversial bill in an election year.

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In their June 2 column, Dora Dixie and Peter Bensinger, two persons who earn their living tending to the drug disaster caused by zero-tolerance prohibition and its multifaceted dire consequences - including death, disease, overdose, drug contamination, addiction, gang proliferation and rampant crime - repeat a number of misleading predictions should Illinois become the 15th state to stop arresting seriously ill patients who use marijuana with their doctors' recommendations.

First, they claim medical marijuana states have the highest rates of teen marijuana use, implying that somehow medical marijuana laws lead to more teen use.

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This is in response to Shirley Bradley's letter regarding medicinal marijuana ("Marijuana law would send mixed message," YourViews, June 5).

She acknowledges that medical marijuana is available to anyone suffering from pain, headaches and attention deficit disorder, not just dying patients. This is no surprise. Cannabis has been shown to effectively treat anxiety, depression, glaucoma and pain. There are other drugs available to treat these conditions. However, they can be just as debilitating as the diseases themselves.

Hydrocodone is just as addicting and harmful as heroin because it's derived from the same plant. Acetaminophen is found in most medicines and treats pain, but is also linked to liver failure. One can overdose or die on 10 pain pills. Marijuana has yet to be the direct cause of any known deaths.

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I'd like to title this story "Mitch and the Magic Marijuana Van."

"Mitch" was a good kid although he grew up with little parental supervision.

His dad was busy all the time with a contracting business, and when he wasn't working, he was thinking about ways to manage Mitch's mom.

She was a physically stunning woman, obsessed with her looks, night life, dancing and male attention.

Between these two, Mitch lived a pretty fast life, seeing things a young teenager probably shouldn't see. All the obsessions and compulsions resulted in an ugly divorce.

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James Gierach of Palos Park was in Morris last week.

Even though he ran for governor once, his name is still not going to be recognized by most people.

The fact that he was willing to run a hopeless race against the popular Jim Edgar in 1994, shows he is willing to tilt at windmills.

Edgar won re-election in 1994, defeating his main opponent, Dawn Clark Netsch, and carrying all but one county in Illinois.

Whether anyone thinks Gierach is still tilting at windmills will depend on their view of drugs and whether they should be legalized.

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I am writing this letter to urge you to contact your Illinois senators about Senate Bill 1381 concerning medical marijuana in Illinois. The Illinois House has already passed this bill and it could be voted on in the Senate soon.

We should all be educated from television, newspapers and magazines about medical marijuana. We know the good and bad. Certainly, we want to help people with these diseases, but is it worth it when the same diseases can be treated just as well in other ways?

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