HYSTERIA ABOUT MARIJUANA

Editor - In July, 1997, the British Medical Association called for the
rescheduling of marijuana so doctors could prescribe it and research it.

Though there is argument that modern medicine should not resort to smoked
leaves, Health Canada's director recently stated that "Marijuana as a
medicine is not an outlandish proposition."

The hysteria of prohibition in the U.S. has stifled virtually all
therapeutic research. Only after Proposition 215 passed in California did
the government reluctantly lift the ban. Last month, published research
proved a marijuana metabolite is remarkably effective in reducing
inflammation and swelling in acute and chronic arthritic conditions.

Last November, research was presented at the annual meeting of the Society
for Neuroscience documenting specifically how marijuana stimulates the same
area in the brain that morphine uses to kill pain but uses a completely
different biochemical mechanism without the side effects of tolerance,
dependence, withdrawal and nausea.

One example of Oklahoma's war on sick people is William Foster, 38, of
Tulsa, a husband and father of three children, who suffers from severe
rheumatoid arthritis. For growing 60 plants in a locked bomb shelter in
his basement, he received a 93-year sentence on a first offense.

After one year of prison medical care, Will's left leg has ulcerated, and
his handwriting has become almost unreadable. His children suffer
nightmares of the bust and their high grades have plummetted.

Another example is Jimmy Montgomery, 44, of Sayre, a paraplegic who
testified last month before investigative hearings at the Institute of
Medicine. He was sentenced to life plus 16 years first time offense for
possessing two ounces of marijuana with intent to distribute. A lack of
medical attention led to his medical parole and to the amputation of his
leg. In both cases, a medical defense was not allowed by law.

The Drug Policy Foundation is supported in its advocacy of harm reduction
techniques (including needle exchange) by a consensus of the board of the
American Medical Association as editorialized in JAMA, ["Winds of Change in
American Drug Policy," Sept. 17, 1997].

The DPF membership was quite large and active long before Soros helped fund
our efforts two years ago and consists of judicial, law enforcement,
health, education and other professionals and individuals who believe that
the harm reduction methods of control through regulation is preferable to
harm maximization (zero-tolerance).

Harm reduction removes marijuana from the black marketplace (the only
documentable gateway to hard drugs) and licenses adults to sell only to
adults in regulated package stores as is hard alcohol. By providing
certified addiction clinics and specialists who could prescribe clean known
potency drugs at non-hyperinflated prices, addicts making up 80 percent of
black market customers would be stolen.

According to Milton Friedman, a Republican Nobel Laureate in economics and
member of the DPF, this would drastically reduce robbery, prostitution and
sales to minors, break the back of the black market and its associated
violence, and relieve our justice system and prisons. If an addict
committed a violent act, he would be incarcerated. The message sent to
children, as it is now for morphine and other drugs, is that sick people
get treated, embracing humane and Christian principles.

Recently, the Swiss voted by 71 percent to continue a three-year heroin
medicalization program. Ueli Minder, a policy coordinator for the Swiss
Federal Office of Public Helath, is firm that this policy has drastically
reduced not only property and other petty crimes, but also violent crimes
and is a huge success.

Under current policy, children can obtain marijuana much easier than
beer. The same is rapidly becoming true of heroin. Our justice
system is broken, drug use is increasing, drug trafficking is booming. Our
policies are putting money into the pockets of greedy men while placing our
children in the path of the jaws of justice. The only way to kill the
market that uses our children to sell to children is to take control
through regulation.

Michael Pearson, Registered Pharmacist Oklahoma City