READER ILLUMINATES LONG-TERM WEED STUDIES

In Anthony Bruno's letter, "Protesters Should Be Rational Not
Radical," which printed on Nov. 20, Mr. Bruno tries to sound like he
knows what he is talking about. Bruno says, "No one has died from
smoking marijuana because it's illegal; therefore there have been no
long-term studies."

No one has died from an overdose of pot is because it IS the safest of
the intoxicants. In 1988, DEA administrative law judge Francis Young
said "cannabis is the safest therapeutic substance known to man."

Long term studies date as far back as the late 1800s. Those studies
include: The Indian Hemp Commission Report (1894) - "the Commission
are of opinion that the moderate use of hemp drugs appears to cause no
appreciable physical injury of any kind." Also, the Panama Canal
Military Study (1916 -1929); the La Guardia Committee Report in 1944;
the Baroness Wootton Report (UK, 1968); the Report of the National
Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (Shaffer Commission, 1972); the
Institute of Medicine study published in 1999.

UCLA's Donald Tashkin reported in 2005 that marijuana smoking - "even
heavy long-term use" - doesn't cause cancer.

Bruno also says, "if any member of this organization wants to sit
there and tell me that smoking five joints a day for twenty years will
not have adverse health effects, then I would love to laugh in their
face." Tashkin's study showed that even among people who had smoked
more than 20,000 joints in their life did not have an increased risk
of cancer.

I suggest, if he is sincerely interested, Mr. Bruno research the
foundation of testimony underlying cannabis prohibition. What he will
find is that pot's illegal status is founded upon bigoted lies and
perjured testimony before the Congress of the U.S. and a continuous
campaign of "Reefer Madness" propaganda by our government's
professional - and perpetual - drug war bureaucracy.

Allan Erickson

Drug Policy Forum of Oregon