MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Editor You people at The Chronicle seem quite knowledgeable about the
hairstyles of our local TV news folk, but your grasp of the medical pot
issue seems a little fuzzy.

In your many past articles and editorials regarding Proposition 215 and
medical marijuana clubs, did the two issues not seem a little bit related?
I think most voters understood that such clubs, being the only feasible
means of distribution prior to the election, were the means of distribution
they were being asked to approve of.

My sneaking suspicion is that a whole lot of drug war aficionados, having
failed on every other level of this issue, would at the very least like to
see this common herb controlled and distributed within the profitable
confines of the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government and the
medical establishment. Perhaps we should turn the whole issue over to
Governor Wilson's HMO task force?

The common sense view is that, in the wake of a devastating plague, a whole
lot of fedup people created their own functional cooperative systems
devoted to fostering health and alleviating pain, and the voters of
California voiced their support.

Perhaps a few more deaths and a little more pain will change your minds
about the relative importance of political policy and cooperative action. I
know which side I'm on, as do the many citizens who have happened to live
through the suffering of a loved one once too often.

PETER GUERIN
San Francisco