ANTI-MARIJUANA CLAIMS DUBIOUS

The Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency agree
that smoked marijuana has no medicinal value, yet they have approved a
pharmaceutical pill, Marinol, derived from the active ingredient in
marijuana.

According to the DEA's Web site, it even helped facilitate the
research for Marinol. Since the DEA's mission is to enforce the
controlled substances laws and regulations, why would it be
facilitating research on a drug it considers illegal with no medicinal
value?

The DEA said there are no FDA-approved medications that are smoked.
Smoking is a poor delivery system for medicine. However, smoking
marijuana is not the only delivery system that can be used. It can be
made into tea, cooked in a variety of foods and now there is a
vaporizer that takes most of the harmful carcinogens out.

The FDA doesn't approve of smoking opium either, so it has a
pharmaceutical drug derived from opium called morphine. However, once
morphine is prescribed and the patient gets it home, the FDA has no
control over what type of delivery system the patient uses. He could
snort it or inject it intravenously. I think the FDA and the DEA are
insulting our intelligence with their excuses about why marijuana
can't be approved for medicine.

Dawn Palmer

Tarrant