MONTANANS WERE DUPED IN PASSING MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Every merchant in Butte should be green with envy of the way The
Montana Standard is treating the "medical marijuana" businesses.
Advertising in The Standard is not cheap, but these guys are getting
nothing but free ads on the front page day after day. It is
interesting that The Standard keeps pumping out all of these positive
stories in spite of the obvious negative side of this story. You
admit in the June 1 edition that the Montana doctors are not
supporting what is happening now. Why don't you go ahead and write
the article emphasizing the negatives? Instead you inset a piece on
"How to get a medical marijuana card." As if the people who want to
smoke dope can't figure that out!

Montana was duped by the pot sellers when it passed this law - too
bad the voters didn't see this coming. It points up why we have to
be careful about how we vote. This time a simple NO would have been best.

The conundrum is that if marijuana really has any medical value (not
really that clear that it does), any physician could easily have seen
to it that those who need it get it. Since when has modern medicine
been hampered from prescribing any drug that really has a chance of
being helpful for its medicinal value? One could make a good case
that modern medicine has already offered too much opportunity for
prescription drug abuse with no help from this law.

No, the truth is that there was a concerted effort by the pushers to
sell this "bill of goods" to many states and Montana (among many) was
duped. The theory is that somehow marijuana offers benefits that no
doctor is capable of offering through the regular avenues of medical
care. What utter nonsense!

Charles Stigers

3123 Carter St.

Butte