HANDS OFF MEDICAL POT

Editor -- I oppose the recommendations of the Lockyer Medical
Marijuana Task Force (SB848) for reasons many Californians will
understand readily.

I wrote Proposition 215 for patients to protect them from the people
who now want to register them, and send public health officials to
their homes to check the amount of medical marijuana they may have.

SB848 sets up a ``voluntary'' registry, but if a person doesn't join,
pay fees and jump through all their hoops, he is, by implication,
guilty. That's not only coercive, but the idea of registering AIDS and
cancer patients is extremely controversial.

We want the state Legislature to exempt patients from the remaining
pot laws, not create 16 pages of new ones targeting medical use. Why
not just add ``except for medical purposes'' to the law that prohibits
marijuana sales?

Thank you, Gov. Davis, for protecting patients by promising to veto
this imbalanced bill that would forever violate the privacy of
doctor-patient relationships while costing patients hundreds of
dollars per year.

Our elected representatives should skip the big-brother-knows-best
routine and find the courage to keep medical marijuana free from the
clutches of the law enforcement establishment, health bureaucrats and
the pot dealers. Why can't they just put it in pharmacies?

DENNIS PERON

Californians for Compassionate Use San Francisco