UP IN SMOKE

I have one quibble with Ben Fulton's column ["Speed Limit,"
Note From the Editor, Dec. 21, City Weekly] regarding cannabis
compared with tobacco: Asthma is a qualifying disease under
California's Compassionate Use Act.

Marijuana is "darned hard on your lungs?" Hardly. This boomer has
enjoyed it often, since 1968. Please see the latest UC/Tashkin study
for evidence that smoking cannabis does not cause and may even prevent
cancer. That same study found conclusive evidence of tobacco's
carcinogenic effects.

The Schedule I status of cannabis is indeed bizarre, particularly
when methamphetamine, morphine, and Fentanyl are all Schedule II. Kind
of hard to explain the existence of Schedule III Marinol, eh?

It is well past time to repair the 1970 Controlled Substances
Act--ideally, to remove cannabis from it entirely and end the obscene
raids by the DEA upon cannabis patients and our providers.

Rick Steeb,

San Jose, Calif.