Before he wrote "Stoned: A Doctor's Case for Medical Marijuana," Dr. David Casarett said, he echoed skeptical medical school peers who viewed medical marijuana with "detached amusement."

"We were told it caused schizophrenia and depression and it leads to abuse of dangerous drugs," said Casarett, 47, palliative care physician and professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.

Then Casarett read the research, which he learned is "not pseudoscience after all." He interviewed dozens of patients and doctors, visited dispensaries and tried marijuana to relieve his back pain. "Taking control" is the phrase he heard repeatedly from patients who turned to marijuana after mainstream drugs failed to alleviate their symptoms. "Yes, it has side effects," they told Casarett. "But so do FDA-approved drugs."

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As a soldier fighting against the national war on drugs, Arthur Sobey of Norfolk is suing for peace. Sobey, a leader in the fight to legalize marijuana for medical reasons, is one of two Nebraska plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit seeking to end the U.S. prohibition on the medical use of marijuana. The 20 year Army veteran and chronic pain sufferer monitors, from his Norfolk home computer, what he says is a $100 billion national war on drugs that is doing more harm than good.

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