LAWS DON'T RECOGNIZE MEDICAL VALUE OF MARIJUANA

Regarding your editorial, Pot controls still needed (Aug. 2).

While the recent headlines surrounding the pot debate rage on, your editorial proves many are still mired in ignorance on the topic of medicinal marijuana and cannot shed their stereotypical ideas of marijuana users.

It is true marijuana is a banned substance and that marijuana users are breaking the law when they smoke.

Still, the team of monkeys you had working around the clock to figure this out forgot that, while "the world has changed since the Bee Gees went polyester," laws governing the use of marijuana have not.

So we are currently left with laws that fail to recognize the legitimate medicinal value of drugs like marijuana.

As for the implied higher potency of marijuana since the '60s leading to increased fatalities, your reference to a 1994 study on the subject fails to add whether or not any of the 276 drivers found to be under the influence of marijuana when they died had anything else in their systems at the time.

Something tells me they did.

Moreover, I find it hard to believe cancer or AIDS patients who smoke to reduce their pain were any of those 276.

As well, bike gangs would no longer be doing any pot peddling if the law would simply soften up a bit, so as to enable medicinal users to get it from other sources, such as the government, which could then regulate it.

You say society is not ready to open its doors to marijuana's recreational use, but Canadians are not asking for that.

They are asking for its validity as a medicinal drug.

The fact is, cannabis hurts people far less than tobacco and alcohol.

Maybe we should be plugging the societal leaks in places where the floodwaters are flowing much more rapidly.

PAUL-MARK RENDON

London