ANTI-POT PROPAGANDA

Sick and dying citizens find symptomatic relief consuming marijuana, using
it as tincture or rubbing compound or smoking it.

David Evans' May 21 letter, "Medical marijuana hoax," is the work of a
propagandist.

He quotes a 1998 Institute of Medicine finding that sees "little future in
smoked marijuana as medicine." However, the institute also said it
"uncovered an explosion of new scientific knowledge about how active
components in marijuana affect the body and how they might be used in a
medical context."

Evans says medicines are available for all conditions that marijuana
supposedly helps. My wife has spasticity and pain in her arms and legs
because of 30 years of multiple sclerosis. She has tried all pertinent
legal prescription drugs. One almost killed her. Marijuana butter is her
safest, most effective medicine.

Clarence Thomas, writing for the Supreme Court in the medical marijuana
case, said a 1970 federal law "reflects a determination that marijuana has
no medical benefits worthy of medical exception." Contrary to Evans, the
court didn't decide that marijuana has no medical use. Thomas simply
deferred to a law passed 28 years before the "explosion of new scientific
knowledge" about medical marijuana.

Jim Miller, Silverton