LEGALIZE MEDICAL CANNABIS

President Obama released a policy statement recently "that it's not a
good use of time to go after users and distributors of medical
marijuana in the 14 states that allow such usage, while encouraging
that illegal pot operations involving violence, firearms and sale to
minors still be pursued."

Each year there are more states that show compassion for patients by
allowing the use of cannabis for medical purposes. That number has
risen since 1997, and this time the president has chimed in as well.

Politicians are finally falling in line with what science has been
saying since 1974, when the first reports were published that
cannabis reduced cancer without damage to living cells. Since then,
there have been more and more studies showing cannabis to be one of
the most useful substances of all time in the medical field.

Cannabis is shown to be one of, if not the, safest "drugs" on the
planet, the use of which is less harmful than the legal ramifications
from the government.

In North Dakota, we just don't seem to get it, or we are deliberately
lying to ourselves so we can keep jailing patients. Do we really need
to keep spending our tax dollars to jail MS, cancer, chronic pain and
other patients, so that we can say we are "hard on drugs?" I don't
think so. It's time to make the medical use of cannabis legal in
North Dakota and show that we are compassionate, intelligent people,
as well as not stuck in the '60s with "reefer madness." Let's acquire
the tax revenue from legal medicinal cannabis and stop spending our
tax dollars by prosecuting and jailing medical cannabis users.

Del Snavely

Crosby