FDA'S POT STANCE IS RIDICULOUS

Having just read Gardiner Harris' piece from the New York Times about
the Food and Drug Administration joining opponents of medicinal pot, I
can't help but laugh at this perpetuation of the Anslinger Doctrine,
"Reefer Madness."

The "no-medical-use" stance taken by the FDA is ludicrous and flies in
the face of fact. It is time for these lies to end.

For instance, a cannabis study on cancer was conducted in 1974, where
researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by
the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana
damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of
three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a
virus-induced leukemia.

That study was shut down by the Drug Enforcement Agency and buried. It
was validated again in 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they
had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with
THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

Prohibition II is a corrupted failure originating from racist lies and
perjured testimony before the Congress. Prohibition II is a failure in
fact, practice and principle. End it now.

Allan Erickson

Eugene