Sunday Dialogue

WHEN MARIJUANA IS USED AS MEDICINE.

I congratulate Mr. Evans for his incisive and insightful discussion
of the medical marijuana issue.

Our procedures for assuring safety and efficacy through Food and Drug
Administration approval have been hijacked by marijuana advocates.
They are driving a process of medicine by popular vote - a terrible
precedent for consumer protection.

If marijuana were named Substance X to disconnect it from all the
emotions, its use would be associated with exposure to numerous
impurities, significant addiction, psychotic episodes and dose
instability. The medical community and the public would reject it out
of hand. Lobbying by the marijuana culture has resulted in misguided
and misinformed public acceptance.

We need to continue to identify and isolate or synthesize the
substances within marijuana that have beneficial uses, and bring
those to the public with careful research - not succumb to those who
ultimately seek to legalize the smoked drug.

ERIC A. VOTH

Chairman

The Institute on Global Drug Policy

St. Petersburg, Fla., Dec. 14, 2011