MEDICAL MARIJUANA USEFUL

I appreciated your insightful editorial of May 18, "What's so awful about
pot for the gravely ill?" about the recent Supreme Court ruling on medical
marijuana and its impact on patients like Mondovi resident Jacki Rickert.

Legislation was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives earlier
this year. HR 1344, the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act, currently
has 11 co-sponsors, including Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. This bill
would reschedule marijuana so physicians could prescribe it and allow
individual states to set their own policies on medical marijuana.

Hopefully, the Supreme Court's ruling that federal law prohibits the
medical use of marijuana will trigger a groundswell of public support for
changing the law so patients like Rickert do not have to break the law to
hold on to a little quality of life. Interested parties should contact
their congressional representatives and ask them to co-sponsor this bill.

Legislation is also being mulled at the state level, and again those
wishing to end the cruel status quo that criminalizes the sick and dying
should also contact their state Assembly and Senate representatives and ask
that they support a state medical marijuana law.

Gary Storck

Director of Communications Is My Medicine Legal Yet? Madison

Editor's note: Jacki Rickert is the founder and executive director of Is My
Medicine Legal Yet?