MARIJUANA HELPS THE ILL

Women in their teens and early 20s are currently and actively being
prescribed questionable - possibly fatal - synthetically medicated patches.
Clinics are prescribing them, and pharmaceutical companies are making money
from their manufacture,distribution, and use - legally. Meanwhile, people
who are terminally ill or have no hope for recovery are prescribed massive
amounts of pain medications and synthetically derived opiates.

Something seems so backwards about young women dying from mystery drugs
made by big companies, and elderly people munching down pills, while a
plant with proven medical benefits, proven health benefits, something that
has been used for thousands of years by so many cultures - including our
own (hemp) - is illegal. The attempt for its legalization - by thousands of
Iowa City citizens - is belittled and discredited.

There is something wrong with fatal drugs being legally prescribed and
profited from, while naturally occurring medicines that have less harmful
effects on the body are illegal. There is something wrong with old women
high on oxycodone and hydrocodone, or finding Grandma's medicine cabinet
full of codeine while she has a destroyed liver. I worked in an
oncologist's office and have never before seen so many
disoriented,suffering adults.

Our nation's drug policy is backwards and influenced by large
pharmaceutical corporations. Politicians, doctors, and pharmaceutical
companies all make lots of money, while those in pain suffer financially,
physically, and emotionally. The public needs to continue educating itself
about the truths behind medicinal marijuana so that those in pain and those
with nothing else can get help from something other than a bottle full of
pills or patches. Anyone with a logical mind can see that pharmaceuticals,
especially in the quantity in which they are produced, are far more
damaging than a medication older than their great-great-grandparents.

Tim Knab