Pubdate: Thu, 30 Jan 2014
Source: Daily Courier (Prescott, AZ)
Copyright: 2014 Prescott Newspapers, Inc.
Contact: http://www.dcourier.com/Formlayout.asp?formcall=userform&form=1
Website: http://www.dcourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4036
Author: Kris Ottinger

MEDICAL MARIJUANA ISN'T THE PROBLEM

EDITOR:

According to MatForce, eight young people die every year in Yavapai 
County from prescription drug abuse. Compare that to the zero who 
have died, ever, from the use of marijuana. As stated by world 
renowned neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent for CNN Sanjay 
Gupta, "Most frightening to me is that someone dies in the United 
States every 19 minutes from a prescription overdose... As much as I 
searched, I could not find a documented case of death from marijuana 
overdose." He goes on to say, "It doesn't have a high potential for 
abuse and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, 
sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works."

In the 2012 Yavapai County Community Health Assessment, the use of 
marijuana by students was 0.5 percent below the state average while 
the use of chewing tobacco, hallucinogens, and prescription pain 
relievers, stimulants and sedatives were significantly higher than 
the state average. This same study shows that although 14.3 percent 
of students did report using marijuana within the past 30 days, 31.9 
percent reported using alcohol.

Therefore, according to these studies and your reasoning, we should 
not only stop the use of medical marijuana, but also dry up the 
county and close the pharmacies.

No one, especially legitimate medical marijuana patients, condone or 
encourage the unauthorized use of medicine by teens or young people 
and patients are being unjustly attacked and made to feel like 
criminals simply for choosing a non-lethal approach to alleviate their pain.

Kris Ottinger

Prescott Valley
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom