CANNABIS TRUTH HIDDEN

Like letter writer James Stepp, (Suppressing truth?, March 11) I too
appreciated your article on hemp.

I must correct Mr. Stepp on a minor point in his letter. The cannabis
study on cancer was conducted in 1974, where researchers at the
Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National
Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the
immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three
kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced
leukemia. That study was shut down by the Drug Enforcement Agency and
buried. It was validated again in 2000 when researchers in Madrid
announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by
injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

Also, see the Journal of the American Medical Association, Oct. 20,
1975. You will find a study of the value of marijuana in controlling
epileptic convulsions. The list of supportive studies on cannabis
medical efficacy is too long for my letter. There is a disturbing
corruption in our prohibition of cannabis. We still follow blindly
the bigoted rantings used as "evidence" against cannabis by our first
Drug Czar, Harry Anslinger, in his "Reefer Madness" campaign.

Allan Erickson

Drug Policy Forum of Oregon

Eugene, Ore.