MEDICAL MARIJUANA

While you are right to urge Gov. Gray Davis and Atty. Gen. Bill
Lockyer to implement the law on medical marijuana, it is hardly in the
"spirit of Proposition 215" to propose that they do so by following
federal, as opposed to California, law. The intent of Proposition
215--although you never supported it--was quite plainly to permit
marijuana to be used like other prescription drugs, for "any illness
for which marijuana provides relief."

If physicians find that marijuana relieves their patients'
nausea--even granting your dubious assumption that this is not a
"serious illness"--what possible good is there in keeping them from
using it? Why waste law enforcement resources splitting hairs over
medical marijuana, when there are so many other, far more toxic drugs
that can be freely prescribed?

DALE GIERINGER
Coauthor, Prop. 215
San Francisco