MARIJUANA RAIDS HARM PEOPLE WHO ARE SUFFERING

Why do we bother to vote? The federal government will do what it
pleases regardless of how individual states vote. The police raid on
the medical marijuana dispensary in Tustin made me sick and angry
["Police hit medical pot store," Local, Jan. 14].

As a retired registered nurse, working in hospital settings for 40
years, I have seen countless people suffer with illnesses that rob
them of the things healthy people take for granted. They have
unyielding nausea, the inability to enjoy a simple meal, resultant
weight loss and intractable pain. These are only a few things
chronically ill people experience that could be helped a little by
marijuana. I have yet to see an approved medication work to control
nausea. I watched my own mother die a long slow death from cancer
with all of the symptoms I've mentioned and more.

Californians voted almost 10 years ago to approve medical marijuana,
perhaps because we have empathy for people who are suffering, yet the
feds want to interfere and use their iron fists to stop anyone who
tries to help. Don't the Tustin police have better things to worry
about than taking up their time for five months of surveillance and
posing as sick people with phony doctors' verifications to raid the
dispensary and confiscate marijuana?

Did they really think they were protecting the citizens of Tustin and
Orange County? What a sham.

Our government reminds me of Big Brother, always in the business of
hurting little people who are not harming anyone.

Pam Morris

Santa Ana