MEDICAL MARIJUANA OPENS PANDORA'S BOX

To the editor: When reading the guest column, "The real story on
medical marijuana," I couldn't agree with it more. Approving medical
marijuana will not only give individuals with debilitating medical
conditions better access to the drug, but also drug abusers. It is
absurd to see only a total of 2 percent of California's medical
marijuana patients actually have a serious illness that the drug was
approved for. The drug isn't being approved for appropriate illnesses
as it should be. People are using cancer patients' serious problems as
a way to benefit their addiction.

It seems that legalizing medical marijuana would cause greater
problems than it would improve. If it is approved, there would be more
individuals getting away with DUIs or other serious crimes, such as
domestic violence and child abuse. Prop 203 says that people can't be
charged with a DUI when having small amounts of marijuana in their
system. This begins to get tricky when there is no definition of a
"small amount." Also, when someone is charged with domestic violence
or child abuse and they blame the fact they were high off medical
marijuana that was given to them because of "some medical problem,"
they can attest to the fact that the marijuana affected their judgment.

This leaves us with the choice to approve medical marijuana and the
problems that come with it, or stop the problems before they happen.

ALEXANDRIA SHEFFLER

Flagstaff