MEDICAL MARIJUANA BACKED BY MANY STUDIES

Regarding your Nov. 20 wire story, "Researchers intend to find out whether
pot is good medicine," a simple point should be noted. Uninformed
researchers, as well as interested readers, should visit both the Media
Awareness Project, http://www.mapinc.org/ and http://www.marijuananews.com to become familiar with
the large amount of research already done on medical pakalolo.

They can read for themselves dozens of peer-reviewed studies showing that
cannabis has profound medical applications, including but not limited to
curing or putting into remission two types of cancers, slowing the
progression of multiple sclerosis, stopping epileptic seizures, and
relieving asthma attacks, attention deficit disorder and arthritis.

There is also a study showing that whole cannabis is much more effective
than Marinol, a corporate product legally made from THC in an oil base. They
might also read the government's recent Institute of Medicine report on the
subject, which clearly, but timidly, states that cannabis has unique and
important medical uses.

The U.S. media rarely report any of this to its consumers, so the ignorance
of the researchers mentioned in the article is somewhat understandable.

Lee Eisenstein
Watsonville, Calif.