Another Look At Pot

FOR MEDICINAL USE, AT LEAST

Marijuana should be legalized or at least removed from schedule I of
the Controlled Substances Act.

In 1972, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse
conducted more than 50 studies and surveys of opinions of
professional experts, district attorneys, judges, probation officers,
clinicians and public officials. The commission found that "no
sufficiently social reason, predicated on existing knowledge,
justifies intrusion by the criminal justice system into the private
lives of individuals who smoke marijuana."

In 1988, after extensive hearings, an administrative law judge found:
"Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutic
substances known to man." He recommended that marijuana be moved to
schedule II so that doctors could prescribe it.

Since 1996, 13 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana
involving about 25 percent of the U.S. population. It is high time
that the federal government either reschedule marijuana or legalize
it outright. Alcohol is a far more dangerous substance, and yet it is
advertised along our highways.

Jeff Brown

Florida Ambassador for Americans for Safe Access Groveland