MEDICINAL MARIJUANA 'SAVED MY LIFE'

To the Editor:

I just finished reading the Roger Pratt letter entitled, "The great
marijuana cover-up," in today's paper (NDN, Thursday Sept 21, 2006)
and had to respond immediately.

Almost 10 years ago, I suffered a serious head injury in an
MVA. Five years after that, I was sleeping about 10 hours a week,
was suicidally depressed, unable to work and was consuming anywhere
between 20 and 30 thousand dollars a year in prescription
drugs. About $1,000 was out of pocket, the rest was payed for by the
Canadian taxpayer.

Then one of my friends introduced me to medical marijuana and less
than five years later I sleep regularly, have little depression, am
able to work and am only consuming about 300 dollars a year in
prescription drugs. Before this, I had not used marijuana since
early adulthood.

Given these circumstances, I found his letter extremely offensive and
arrogant with overtones of outright ignorance. Mr. Pratt clearly has
no experience in medical issues including the debilitating side
effects of prescription drugs and the relatively inert properties of
cannabis. This drug saved my life and is also saving people like Mr.
Pratt and all Canadian taxpayers 20 to 30 thousand dollars a year.

People should be applauded for successfully taking responsibility for
their own health rather than be put down by people who have no idea
about the true nature of cannabis, or any other drug.

Carl Anderson

Canadian Federal Medical Marijuana Exemptee