Remarks by Rick Perry, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor,
to an anti-drug group included a statement that doesn't make much
sense to me ("Perry gives campaign speech at city anti-drug lunch,"
Chronicle, Oct. 3). Perry said that parents should not be put in a
position of "having to explain why grandma, it's okay for her to use
marijuana for her glaucoma but you can't while you're boating out on
Lake Texoma."

That is exactly what parents ought to be explaining to their children:
that drugs themselves are not good or bad and that most drugs can be
used for good purposes; some can be abused and abusing drugs is unhealthy.

When drugs are used properly, they can improve the quality of life --
even save lives.

If a doctor thinks that marijuana might help grandma's glaucoma, why
should we allow politicians to say no?

When a doctor prescribes morphine to ease a patient's pain from
terminal cancer, does that send some kind of "message" that it's okay
to use morphine while boating on Lake Texoma?

And really, who do we want to make those decisions about what medical
care grandma or anyone else requires: politicians or doctors?

Chester Cochran, Houston