MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Both ultraconservatives and liberals in California voted for medical
marijuana, and under the conservative agenda of states' rights this law
should prevail ("Justices Signal Trumping of Medical Pot Law in Calif.,"
March 29). When my mother was dying of cancer my born-again sister, a
staunch Republican, went out and bought her pot to help ease her pain, and
both my conservative Republican sister and brother support medical use of
marijuana for the sick and dying. Anyone who has watched a person dying of
AIDS or cancer would not deny them a drug that might ease their suffering.

What I do not understand is how the Republicans and the conservative
justices can preach states' rights, yet when it comes to easing the pain of
the dying, they throw states' rights out the window in favor of the
multibillion-dollar war-on-drugs industry. Voters have seen that the
argument for states' rights is just a smoke screen for the Republican
Party, which favors a corporate agenda over individual rights and states'
rights.

TOM MARTIN, West Hollywood