Editor, Index-Tribune:

For the federal government to cause the closing of the California medical
cannabis outlets is shameful. It is attacking the supply of medicine for a
least 10,000 seriously-ill patients who rely on medical marijuana to
alleviate the suffering caused by cancer, AIDS, anorexia, muscle spasms,
chronic pain, and numerous other ailments.

On December 29th. 1997, I wrote to Attorney General Dan Lungren. I
mentioned that his "help is desperately needed and will certainly be
appreciated by the majority of voters who believe that the ill and dying
are permitted the legal use of a virtually non-toxic medicine. I'm certain
you will agree, I said, that it is not feasible to expect sick people, many
who are in wheelchairs, to have to break the law to obtain their medicine.
Many are not able to even leave their homes."

I made it clear that there must be a safe and legal distribution system. No
reply. (Perhaps he's too busy running for Governor.)
Many patients have no place to grow pot. Those who do are afraid of being
ripped-off. To go into back alleys the ill are subjected to receiving
poor grade, and possibly poison-sprayed marijuana.

Marijuana prohibition was created by ignorance, hypocrisy,
misrepresentation, greed, power, money, racism, perjury, and government
betrayal. The government has always been aware that marijuana was coveted
medicine used in china for more than 5,000 years.

In 5,000 years of history pot has never caused one toxicity related death.
Compare that figure with FDA approved drugs in the Physicians Desk
Reference, (PDR) which causes the death of some 140,000 Americans each year
from toxicity, or adverse drug reactions. Alcohol and tobacco, together,
kill some 500,000 AmericanÌs annually.

The government has charged that marijuana is the most violence causing drug
in the history of mankind. It turns people into criminals, and many
marijuana users go insane.

It was those false charges that caused the prohibition of marijuana. My
book, "Marijuana: Not Guilty As Charged," was written to educate Americans
that marijuana is not a dangerous drug. That it is safe medicine. Safer
than aspirin. Aspirin has caused the death of thousands from internal
bleeding.

David R. Ford