SUPPORTS DRUGS FOR THE SICK

I generally make it a habit not to respond to other peoples letters.
This however is a rare exception. Your editor couldn't have said it
better: "No marijuana for sick people" (Feb. 26).

How about no morphine for sick people, or no cocaine for sick people?
Most every drug on the market today that is used to control pain is
dangerous in the hands of the public. They are all prescribed to treat
serious illnesses.

Christopher Petrella has obviously never watched his mother waste away
from the ravages of cancer caused by a "legal" drug, tobacco. I would
have gotten anything my mother wanted to ease her pain and wouldn't
have cared about whether it was legal or not. In case he doesn't know
it, morphine, the main pain reliever for cancer patients, is a
derivative of the opium poppy, the same plant that produces heroin.
Wow, where are we going to get that? Apparently we can get anything we
want, as long as it is legal.

If marijuana helps ease the pain of AIDS and cancer it should be
available to the people who need or want it. As to where they get it,
it is already being grown on government compounds for use in states
that have passed similar legislation. As to Mr. Petrella running
against Delegate Louise Snodgrass, all I can say is I've never voted
for her, but if he runs maybe I will reconsider.

DAN BENSON,
Frederick

Opposed, But Unaware

Christopher Petrella wrote a letter ("No marijuana for sick people,"
Feb. 24) lambasting Delegate Louise Snodgrass for supporting a
proposed bill in the General Assembly legalizing medicinal marijuana.
Yet it is clear that Mr. Petrella is not aware of the way in which
medicinal marijuana is distributed or used.

I have had family members suffer from "recreational" use of marijuana,
so I would certainly not support wholesale legalization of the drug. I
do, however, understand that the drug can be used to great benefit for
certain medicinal purposes, and several states, including California
and Arizona, have passed measures similar to the one being considered
presently in the General Assembly.

As I understand it, the drug would be treated as a controlled
substance. It would be prescribed by a physician and distributed
through a pharmacy, just as other controlled substances are. I don't
know the details of how it would be produced, but I have to assume it
would be produced legally by a supplier conforming to FDA regulations;
otherwise it would not be legal to distribute by pharmacies.

Crack cocaine, as Mr. Petrella suggests, would not ever be used for
medicinal purposes, as it is strictly a "street drug." There are
controlled substances, however, with chemical compositions in the
cocaine family that are used for medicinal purposes. In fact, many of
the legal drugs prescribed today are based on the chemical compounds
found in many different plants. Treating Cannabis differently in this
context is actually inconsistent with western pharmacology.

Mr. Petrella's insensitivity about the chronic pain and nausea of
cancer patients and others who are treated with medicinal marijuana is
disturbing. I wonder, if he suffered severe chronic pain or nausea and
a medicine were available to ease his suffering, would he refuse a
doctor's prescription because he didn't wish to "escape from reality?"

ELIZABETH ROSE,
Middletown