IT'S TIME POLITICIANS STOP BEING PHYSICIANS

To the editor:

"We must free science and medicine from the grasp of politics." You
may not know it,and he might not remember it, but this is a quote by
President Bill Clinton. Yet it is the federal drug enforcement
authorities who insist that marijuana has no medicinal value and
should not be recommended by doctors.

When these people get their licenses to practice medicine then they
can make medical decisions; until then they must leave those decisions
to those who are licensed.

Even state Attorney General Bill Lockyer wonders why suffering
patients can be given morphine, but not marijuana, if that's what can
ease their pain. Some 5.3 million California voters supported the
passing of Prop. 215 in 1996. So it's time Bill Lockyer goes to
Washington to remind our president what he said.

WILLIAM JAMESON
Laguna Niguel