MARIJUANA LAW WOULD SEND MIXED MESSAGE

The Illinois Senate Bill 1381 defines "medical use" as the
acquisition, possession, cultivation, manufacture, use, delivery,
transfer or transportation of marijuana.

Marijuana use as medicine is not restricted only for use by those who
are terminally ill or dying. In Colorado and California, teenagers
have received medical marijuana cards for pain, headaches and
attention deficit disorder.

Medical marijuana dispensaries could be set up in retail storefronts
to service an unlimited number of registered, qualifying patients.
These dispensaries could have up to 2 ounces of dried usable and
marijuana and six marijuana plants for each patient. If the dispensary
had 400 patients, it could have 50 pounds of dried, usable marijuana
and 2,400 plants! These dispensaries would be magnets for crime.

The Illinois Senate passed SB 1381 last year, and the House could vote
on the issue at any time. This bill sends a mixed message to teens: If
marijuana is medicine, how can it be bad for you?

Legislators are not doctors, and they do not have the expertise to
determine what constitutes medicine.

The legal drug alcohol causes more problems than all illegal drugs
combined. Legalizing marijuana as medicine will increase
"recreational" drug use and crime, negatively impacting families and
communities statewide.

Shirley Bradley, Bloomington