Pubdate: Wed, 26 Mar 2003
Source: Ocean County Observer (NJ)
Copyright: 2003 Ocean County Observer
Contact:  http://www.injersey.com/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1212
Author: Andrew Crichton Douglas, Lakewood

IT'S TIME TO END ZEALOTRY ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

I read with growing annoyance and anger Terrence P. Farley's letter of 
response in the Feb. 24 Ocean County Observer to views priorly expressed in 
the newspaper on the so-called medical marijuana question in support of the 
legalization of doctor-prescribed marijuana for medicinal use in those 
cases in which such use would be medically appropriate. In support of his 
stand against such use of marijuana -- or any use, for that matter -- 
Farley trots out the tired and tiresome anti-drug zealot's scare list of 
studies on the "evils" of marijuana, all of which have in the past been 
shown to be largely without merit by other studies equally well-documented, 
if not nearly as widely disseminated (surprise!).

To further bolster his case, Farley provides another list; one showing all 
those venerable organizations that reject the idea of the medical use of 
marijuana. A cursory examination of the organizations on that list will 
immediately reveal they all share something in common beyond their 
opposition to marijuana for any use whatsoever. In their research 
activities, at least, they're all beneficiaries of the monetary largess of 
that most zealot-ridden and paranoid of the world's anti-drug institutions 
- -- the federal government of the United States of America - an institution 
that by its Draconian drug laws is, in large part, responsible for this 
country's so-called "drug problem," and an institution that has spent, and 
wasted, more than a quarter century and billions upon billions of taxpayer 
dollars attempting to eradicate the eradicable, and, in the process, 
produced evils of magnitudes more egregious than the largely fictional evil 
it was attempting to eradicate.

Enough is enough. This rabid anti-drug zealotry and paranoid lunacy must 
finally cease, and some semblance of sanity be brought to bear, not only on 
the instant issue, but on the issue of drugs and drug use generally as well.

Andrew Crichton Douglas
Lakewood
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart