MARIJUANA THERAPY IN CONTEXT

It's great that The Post is finally giving some balanced and factually
accurate coverage of the medical marijuana issue and the campaign to get
Initiative 57 on the D.C. ballot ["Marijuana for Medicine, Not Abuse"
oped, Nov. 5; "Pushing to Legalize `Miracle Herb,' " Metro, Nov. 11].

This is a welcome relief from the nonsense being preached by Barry
McCaffrey, Steve Forbes and others claiming that the legalization of
medically prescribed marijuana for the seriously ill, which is all that
Initiative 57's tightly worded language would allow, will somehow lead to a
renewed drug epidemic in the District.

But one criticism I have of the Metro article is the way in which Mayor
Barry's endorsement of Initiative 57 was immediately followed by a reminder
to the reader that the mayor is a convicted cocaine abuser. Since
Initiative 57 is written strictly for doctorprescribed marijuana, to be
used for medical purposes only, the mayor's abuse of an entirely different
class of drug for recreational purposes is irrelevant.

Such confusion is a result of a mindset that fails to distinguish between
medically prudent drug use and imprudent recreational use and that makes
illogical distinctions between chemicals whose use is sanctioned by society
(i.e., alcohol) and those whose use is designated as "criminal." As a
professional toxicologist myself, I am constantly reminded of one of the
underlying principles of toxicology that almost anything can be toxic
under the right circumstances and at a sufficient dose.

Life is a series of tradeoffs between dealing with the consequences of
disease and other environmental insults, and dealing with the consequences
of treatments designed to cope with those insults. No method for treating
disease whether it's antibiotics to fight bacterial infection, radiation
to treat cancer, protease inhibitors to treat HIV infection or even the
very natural response of a high fever to drive off invading organisms is
free of risk.

Marijuana therapy should be viewed within the same context it's not
perfect, it's not riskfree, but if it works for certain cases in which
other treatments do not, then it should be made available. To keep it out
of reach of those to whom it could bring potentially lifesaving relief
simply because our archaic criminal code demands it is, in fact, the real
crime.

Steven G. Donkin
Washington