STOP THE HYSTERIA OVER MEDICAL MARIJUANA

HOW unfortunate that Sandra Bennett (Letters, Aug. 12) hasn't spent
time with medical marijuana patients. She would benefit from a
personal look at what's happening in communities like Santa Cruz, and
the good works of groups such as the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical
Marijuana.

WAMM was started by Valerie and Michael Corral. They both had friends
with AIDS and cancer that had been helped by using marijuana, and
they found it to be powerful medicine -- useful in many situations.
Valerie decided that she would start a small collective to provide
organic medical marijuana for herself and those of her friends that
could benefit from it.

Except for voluntary donations, which we encourage mightily, our
medical marijuana is free to all our members. We now serve 200
patients in a situation that is far more than ``getting high.''

There's never been a recorded death from smoking marijuana and it's
been proved in clinical tests to shrink some tumors. It doesn't
injure kidneys or liver like so many other medicines, and it's easy
to grow your own medicine in your backyard (but then the
pharmaceutical companies don't profit, and that makes them very
unhappy).

We really don't need the prohibition hysteria that's a part of an
uninformed past. It's WAMM's job to get correct information to sick
people. There isn't a better medicine for the nausea of chemotherapy
or for the wasting syndrome associated with AIDS. If it also gives
people joy, is that so wrong?

Jean Hanamoto
Morgan Hill

SANDRA Bennett's attack on Ellen Goodman fails to deal with the other
side of the coin in the war on drugs.

Sure, some drugs do harm some people, but what about the human
carnage which results from prohibition? Our jails are filled with
individuals whose only crime involved exercising free will --
individuals who have harmed no one, except possibly themselves.
Families are being destroyed by this policy.

Those who would attempt to protect individuals by proscribing their
use of free will should be held accountable for the collateral damage
their policy causes. Libertarians are aware that ``substance abuse''
does exist, and we support prosecution of individuals who infringe
upon the rights of others while under the influence.

John J. ``Jack'' Hickey
Chair, Libertarian Party of San Mateo County