MEDICINAL MARIJUANA HAS LONG HISTORY AND MUCH VALUE

Dear Editor: As the son of a pharmacist from Rice Lake, a 1963
graduate of the University of Wisconsin who started his medical
career in the Medical School in Madison, and someone with almost 40
years' experience in the field of drug abuse treatment and prevention
and the last five years evaluating patients for medicinal cannabis, I
want to compliment Rep. Gregg Underheim and the Wisconsin Assembly
Health Committee for their recognition of the contemporary medicinal
value of cannabis.

The committee is approaching this seriously and getting valuable
input. It recognizes the 5,000 years of experience of medicinal use
of cannabis. It is aware that just over the border in Canada,
tincture of cannabis (Sativex) is being marketed by Bayer AG and in
England the Home Office has given physicians the OK to prescribe
tincture of cannabis.

I have taught courses on drugs at California universities and am very
familiar with the history of medicinal cannabis use in the United
States from 1839 to the present, and aware of the American Medical
Association's testimony at the 1937 marijuana tax hearings that "the
AMA knows of no danger in the use of cannabis and takes histories
from countless patients with severe medical illness who benefited
from their medicinal use of cannabis."

Consequently, I am baffled by the opposition of the Wisconsin Medical
Society. This does not represent the compassion shown by the doctors
in Rice Lake and Rochester who provided my father's care, nor does it
reflect the quality of basic science I was taught by the UW School of
Medicine in Madison.

I have seen patients who come in in wheelchairs, with canes, stooped
in pain, who tell of the relief they receive from cannabis. These are
people from all walks of life rich and poor, mostly over 40. Several
have broken down in tears after receiving their approval making it
legal to grow and possess cannabis. They say they are not lawbreakers
or criminals and now can use this to medicate without fear of breaking the law.

We have far too many problems in the country to waste government
resources arresting the ill and dying for using a medicine that
provides relief and is legal in Canada, less than 100 miles from the
Wisconsin border.