Suppose your dearest loved one was diagnosed with cancer and you
watched helplessly as they braved the horrors of chemotherapy. The
battery of available medications to fight the brutal nausea and pain
either zonked them out or had other debilitating side effects. In their
struggle for survival they try the illegal drug marijuana and discover
near-instant relief from their symptoms.

Knowing this, would you feel a greater responsibility to loved one or
state? As their link to the world, it is your desire to keep them alive
to battle their disease. As a citizen, it is your duty to have them
arrested for breaking a drug law.

Obviously, few compassionate souls would make the latter choice, but
thousands of people must daily risk imprisonment, loss of home, child
custody, and indignity to acquire potentially life-saving medicines.
Initiative 685 would allow doctors and patients a legal means to
utilize drugs that politicians have decided have no medical value.

Allow trained doctors, not politicians, to decide what is the most
effective treatment for you and your loved ones. End the arbitrary
criminalization of your fellow citizens.

Kevin Nelson
Bow, WA