MAN-MADE CANNABIS ALREADY AVAILABLE

Regarding Thursday's editorial "Let desperate patients have pot," I
have news for you and your readers: Medical marijuana is already
available. It is Marinol (dronabinol is the generic name. See
http://www.drugs.com/marinol.html/).

Marinol is a man-made form of cannabis used to treat loss of appetite,
severe nausea and vomiting, without ingesting harmful carcinogens from
smoking marijuana.

While the American Medical Association may have requested that the
federal government reclassify marijuana from a schedule 1 drug to
something less restrictive, that is hardly a ringing endorsement for
everyone with an ailment to start toking up.

Research can be conducted on marijuana without legalizing the leafy
stuff.

Nina J. Emerson, director

Resource Center on Impaired Driving, UW Law School