MARIJUANA AS A SCOURGE AND A SALVE

To the Editor:

Re "Setback on Medical Marijuana" (editorial, May 17):

In less than a year I will be old enough to smoke tobacco, a legal
substance known to cause many health problems. However, if I developed
cancer from cigarettes, I would not be allowed to smoke marijuana in order
to treat side effects from chemotherapy, even with a doctor's
recommendation. The legal substance could kill me; the substance with
possible healing qualities is illegal.

It cannot reasonably be asserted that these drug policies are actually
intended to help or protect people. While I do not know enough about
federal drug laws to criticize the Supreme Court for its ruling against
medicinal marijuana, I do think Congress should consider changing
marijuana's status as a "drug with no currently accepted medical use."

KEN MCCALLUM

Wheaton, Ill., May 17, 2001

To the Editor:

Re "Setback on Medical Marijuana" (editorial, May 17):

As a physician with training in end-of-life care as well as psychiatry, I
know that medical marijuana is a double-edged sword. Undoubtedly, marijuana
is an effective treatment for the weight loss accompanying AIDS, cancer and
other chronic debilitating illnesses.

Yet medical marijuana is also a substance of abuse. Increasingly, patients
with severe emotional disorders have been obtaining marijuana from their
doctors for problems ranging from headaches and asthma to schizophrenia and
psychogenic arm paralysis. Where once there was a headache compounded by
depression, patients may now suffer from addiction to marijuana.

Given the availability of other medications, the damages of medical
marijuana outweigh the benefits. If it remains accessible, however, the
drug should be far more difficult to obtain. It should be prescribed for
well-defined, limited purposes and require a continuing medical-psychiatric
process of review.

ELI MERRITT, M.D.

Stanford, Calif., May 17, 2001

To the Editor:

The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 0 that the use of medical
marijuana is illegal (front page, May 15). How can anyone deny a remedy to
people suffering with AIDS, cancer or glaucoma? The authority of the
all-knowing federal government just keeps growing.

CHRISTOPHER E. CANTINO

Austin, Tex., May 15, 2001

To the Editor:

Re "Justices Set Back Use of Marijuana to Treat Sickness" (front page, May 15):

Marijuana has no therapeutic value. Studies have found that the THC in
marijuana actually destroys the immune-system cells, called lymphocytes,
that are also impaired by the AIDS virus -- putting AIDS patients who smoke
pot in double jeopardy.

The National Institutes of Health found that "both animal and human studies
have shown that marijuana impairs the ability of T-cells in the lungs'
immune defense system to fight off some infections" and that "people with
H.I.V. and other diseases of the immune system should avoid marijuana use."

The Food and Drug Administration is the agency with the jurisdiction to
approve anything as medicine. Certainly, approval of medicines is not the
job of voters.

JOYCE NALEPKA

President, Drug Free Kids: America's Challenge

Silver Spring, Md., May 15, 2001