REEFER POLICY OUT OF WHACK

As I read the Tuesday, Sept. 18, Daily Forty-Niner editorial "Pot
raids make no constitutional sense," I smiled. I smiled because, as
one of those who has worked off and on for legalization of cannabis
since the mid 1970s, I know that there is still hope.

What aggravates me most about the federal cannabis policy is what
happens when a patient entering a federal court is denied the right
of mentioning their medical use of cannabis.

Because the feds deny that pot is medicine, they allow themselves the
legal chicanery of denying that a patient can use the good herb
medicinally. Even though, of course, the feds are the only legal
dispensers of medical pot through the Compassionate Investigational
New Drug program.

The [five] remaining patients enrolled in the CIND are the sole
proprietors of medical cannabis in the U.S. Beyond that, however, the
treacherous theft of patients' medicine shows the nastiness of a
bureaucracy, drunk with power and addicted to its wealth (our tax dollars).

The feds have known since 1974, when a study conducted at the Medical
College of Virginia found that THC slowed the growth of three kinds
of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer and a virus-induced leukemia.

The Federal prohibition of cannabis is pure governmental criminality.
It is a prohibition founded on bigotry and perjured testimony before
the Congress of the U.S. and has no rightful place in our nation.

Allan Erickson,

Drug Policy Forum of Oregon,

Eugene, Ore.