Pubdate: Wed, 15 Jan 2014
Source: Tampa Bay Times ( FL )
Copyright: 2014 John G. Chase
Contact: http://www.sptimes.com/letters/
Website: http://www.tampabay.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419
Note: Named the St.  Petersburg Times from 1884 2011.
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n635/a06.html
Author: John G. Chase

MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE

Re: Parents ask for legal pot use | Jan.10 Marijuana as medicine

The heart-wrenching story of kids with Dravet syndrome is the tip of 
the iceberg.

I have been petitioning to allow voters to decide in November whether 
patients can use marijuana without fear of arrest.  I often hear 
stories of a close friend or relative who used it - or tried to get 
it - during chemo for pain and for appetite.  Ten years ago I knew 
about pain, appetite and illnesses, but I would have dismissed the 
rest as just hype.  Now I also hear anecdotes about Crohn's ( 'It's 
the only thing that works' ), migraines, arthritis and now even 
epilepsy in adults.

If even half of these anecdotes are true, the fedA-eral government 
should be ashamed of itself for having blocked research for four 
decades.  When marijuana is finally legalized we'll see it labeled 
with the content of THC and CBD.  THC helps by making the patient 
feel good.  But it is CBD that does the work against epilepsy in kids 
such as Charlotte Figi, and probably in the petition-signers I met recently.

It is important that this plant be made legally available, rather 
than entrusting it to the governA-ment, which has proved itself 
unable to put mediA-cine above politics.

John G.  Chase, Palm Harbor  
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D