POT GOOD FOR PEOPLE, NOT RX COMPANIES

In response to Richard Begeman on May 28: He said medical marijuana
was a farce or fairy tale. There are a lot of bad drugs out there, but
marijuana is not one of them. As to a fairy tale, in 1974 there was a
study at the Medical College of Virginia which showed anti-cancer
effects. This study was published in the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute in 1975. The DEA quickly shut down the study.
President Ford ended all research except pharmaceutical companies
trying to make a synthetic but they were unsuccessful.

The article was sent to Madrid where they did a study in 2000. Their
study showed that marijuana slows growth, shrank or destroyed tumors
of three cancers - lung, breast and virus-induced leukemia.

Our government knows that marijuana works not only for pain but also
for cancer. But because pharmaceutical companies do not want it to
become legal, it isn't. If they can't patent it, they can't make money
on it.

You hear that all you have to do is go to your doctor and have him
write an Rx. They can't because they could lose their license to
practice medicine because it is a federal law. We need a federal law
to made it legal. The new restrictions are basically outlawing it. How
many people could have been saved by using this medicine?

We need more research on the uses of marijuana, and not only by
pharmaceutical companies. They have great lobbyists and have given a
lot of money to our congressman, senators, governors and presidents to
make sure it doesn't become legal. They have done a great job in
making people fearful about marijuana and how evil it is. Shame on
them for wanting money more than helping the people that they serve.

Karen Bryan

Bozeman