LEGALIZE MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE

I am one of the three sponsors of a ballot initiative whose sole focus is to
legalize marijuana as medicine.

David Pepper's April 11 letter about medical marijuana contained several
factual errors and misconceptions that deserve clarification.

First, Alaskans for Medical Rights' efforts are limited to legalizing the
medicinal use of only marijuana. Mr. Pepper's concerns that the ballot
initiative would legalize other drugs is unfounded.

Second, this ballot initiative would not allow a person who needed marijuana
for medicinal use to give or sell it to anyone else.

Third, the synthetic pill form of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana)
has several disadvantages that make it far less useful than THC in plant
form. Many people who could benefit from using marijuana as a medicine have
severe nausea, often as a side effect of treatment for cancer. They vomit so
violently that swallowing a pill is a physical impossibility. Even if they
were able to swallow, THC in pill form takes a lot longer to alleviate the
nausea than would THC in plant form.