MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS 'HUMANE'

Thank you for pointing out the madness of current law in your June 22
editorial Dazed and confused on medical marijuana. Florida has flip-flopped
on its attitude toward medical marijuana. The Legislature allowed its use
under controlled studies and encouraged research in the early 1980s. Now the
politically popular sentiment is to denounce marijuana's medical benefits --
even as the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine released a
report finding medical uses for marijuana.

In 1988 Broward Circuit Judge Mark E. Polen, now in the Fourth District
Court of Appeals, issued an opinion in State vs. Musikka, a case against a
legally blind woman arrested for cultivating marijuana to treat her
glaucoma. His words bear repeating: "The absolute prohibition against
marijuana's use, even when such use may be therapeutically required to avoid
grave and irreversible damage, appears on its face to be irrational. To
ignore the plight of such people renders the law callous to the most basic
of all human rights; the right of self-preservation.

"There is a pressing need for a more-compassionate, humane law."

Eleven years later, there's still a pressing need. Our Legislature is
adamantly against carving any compassionate niche in the law. That's why
there is currently a citizen-led initiative drive in Florida -- as there was
in California, Arizona, Washington, Nevada, Oregon and Colorado -- to
legally protect medical-marijuana users who have a doctor's recommendation.

The politicians don't listen to reason, science, evidence or even opinion
polls. It is up to the public to educate them with our votes.

TONI LEEMAN, Coalition Advocating Medical Marijuana, Fort Lauderdale