ACCESS TO MARIJUANA COULD HAVE SAVED LIFE

A hardy amen to your editorial of Sunday! As the former "Mr. Just Say
No" of Shasta County for over 10 years, I tried to help youngsters
fight peer pressure to use alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. As the
father of a daughter who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the
age of 17, I did everything within my power to assist her in her
struggles with this insidious illness.

When her doctor in Seattle prescribed marijuana to ease the pain of
her relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis, her mother and I
encouraged her to use it instead of addictive pain medications. She
tried marijuana and found that it relieved the constant spasms in her
legs, allowing her to sleep at night. But she decided that it was too
difficult to obtain legally and that she did not like its side effects.

When Suzanne passed away in 2005, it was not from Multiple Sclerosis,
it was from an accidental overdose of pain medication, which had been
prescribed by doctors in Redding and the Bay Area and which was
obtained legally at a pharmacy. It is about time we rethink this
issue. Yes to reclassifying marijuana to a Schedule 2 drug. If this
had been done in 2005, Suzanne and many others might be alive today.

Marv Steinberg, Redding