THE POT PROBLEM

Re: "Medical Marijuana Is Already Legal in Illinois: And it has been for
three decades. But it'll take the passage of another law to make it
available to patients," by Claire Thompson, April 8

Thank you for including law enforcement's monetary interest in
continuing the drug war. So often this fact is left out when raising
law enforcement's concerns regarding relaxed cannabis laws. This is an
important caveat when considering what weight to give to their
opinion. Currently, it seems that most legislators forget this
conflict of interest and give law enforcement concerns way too much
sway in the argument.

Additionally, considering how few plants the current law would allow a
patient to cultivate, how much extra medicine can they really expect a
patient to sell off? The plants take months to mature and would make
it difficult for a patient that truly needs the cannabis to have much
excess product after accounting for the time it would take to grow
another batch of medicine. As for the possibility of current drug
dealers simply getting permission to grow to legally supply their
dealing operation, that sounds like an exaggerated concern that could
be overcome through proper diagnosis criteria and monitoring of doctor
practices by licensing boards.

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