MORE STUDY NEEDED ON EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA

Re: "'No amount of penalties will end black market' ( Daily News, Dec. 5)

Whether or not marijuana use will be legalized, the truth about the
possible long-term side effects are still not easy to get at, and
there is a groundswell of popularity for the drug now, particularly in
light of some positive medical uses of it.

From many sectors I am reading there needs to be more longterm studies
about the effects of long term marijuana use.

Even with drugs that have been researched by pharmaceutical companies
and been prescribed by doctors for years, untoward side effects have
occurred later, such as in the case of Thalidomide and Valium, which
was found to be seriously addictive. Also there is Chlorpromazine in
the "'60s, which turned the faces of many patients purple,
permanently, if they went outside in bright sunlight for hours, and
caused tardive dyskenesias, which is, in part, involuntary facial
grimacing and twitching, and shuffling gait.

Dr. Donald Tashkin, of UCLA found in his 30 year studies of 450
subjects that there is more chronic bronchitis among regular marijuana
smokers than among regular tobacco smokers, even though the tobacco
smokers smoked, of course, many more cigarettes per day.

When lungs were examined, it was found that four times more tar was
left by marijuana than by the same amount of tobacco smoked.

In studies of marijuana use for medical purposes, there is evidence
that it decreases immunity in just those patients who need their
immunities most.

Madeline Bruce

Nanaimo