MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The Argus Leader briefly quotes the attorney general's lobbyist,
Charlie McGuigan, in its March 21 story, "S.D. medical marijuana
proposal forming." McGuigan was testifying against a bill to allow
therapeutic cannabis use in the 2005 legislature.

McGuigan's testimony was actually quite a yuck, beginning with his
recitation that "carciginians" and "carciginocens" are found in cannabis.

He said marijuana has "no medical value," and that the usable cannabis
allowed by the bill would be "as much as 280 joints, tantamount to a
year's supply," failing to mention that the FDA currently sends 300
rolled cannabis cigarettes to each of seven patients each month.

McGuigan also said that the Institute of Medicine concluded in 1999
that "the harm outweighs the benefits" with respect to medical
cannabis use. Actually, principal investigator Dr. John Benson said,
"We concluded that there are circumstances in which we recommend
smoking marijuana for medical uses."

The only use of the word, "outweighs," in the report occurred in this
sentence, "Nevertheless, recurrent seizures are physically dangerous
and emotionally devastating, and preventing them outweighs many
undesirable side effects of anticonvulsant drugs (including
marijuana)."

Readers can see the whole report at http://www.mpp.org/science.html.

Bob Newland

Hermosa SD