MEDICAL MARIJUANA CHANGES AND INSULT TO MONTANA VOTERS

It's an affront to Montanans' intelligence to maintain, as some do,
that we voters didn't understand what we were doing when we approved
62 to 38 percent the legalization of medical marijuana through the
state's "initiative process." Moreover, to say the statewide vote
represents "permissive" and "immoral" elements of American culture is
ludicrous.

This same weak argument that voters didn't understand what they were
doing was used in 1998 when astute Montanans through the initiative
process approved the landmark ban on cyanide heap-leach gold mining in
the state. On the contrary, Montanans were weary of a century or more
of mining pollution to the state's water, air and land. Indeed,
Montana voters knew exactly what they were enacting, and the U.S.
Supreme Court eventually agreed.

For Sen. Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, to sponsor a repeal of this
democratically instigated law approving medical marijuana is an
example of the worst kind of legislative tomfoolery.

The "initiative process" serves Montana well. Mainly, this political
concept circumvents poorly performing legislative bodies that refuse
to listen to voters. The initiative process is "participatory
democracy" at the highest level. It is a means to achieve good in a
free society.

I listen to their tales of woe. Acquaintances use medical marijuana to
receive relief from chronic back pain. Therefore, Sen. Milburn is
chronically uniformed and chronically uncivil. He and like-minded
colleagues impair our state's democratic system. Among Montanans,
there's little objection to regulating medical marijuana. But shame on
your autocratic legislative chamber, Milburn, if you and fellow
Republicans deliberately deny freedom of choice.

Jack Gilluly

820 W. Third St.

Anaconda