NOT VOICE OF REASON

Dr. Eric Voth's letter, "Goal isn't medical help," (Aug. 18) is truly
what is terrible about medical marijuana. The anti-cannabis fanatic's
colors wave dull and dark in Voth's screed.

Dr. Voth in declaring his chairmanship of the Institute on Global Drug
Policy also declares his association with the worst of the
prohibitionist movement in the 21st century, including folks like Mel
and Betty Sembler, who were instrumental in the failed and torturous
Straight Inc. organization, a group that has tortured American
children in the jihad against drugs and those who use them.

Voth predictably and completely misses the point when he says former
Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephan "ventured outside his area of
expertise and endorsed a new push for medical-excuse marijuana." As a
state's attorney general, Stephan's expertise in law is vast. As a
cancer patient he is indeed an expert on experience alone in the
suffering of dealing with cancer.

If AG Stephan endorses cannabis it is not done from a point of
ignorance but rather from witnessing first hand the benefits cannabis
offers to many patients, for many conditions beyond cancer.

Voth is but one of the very few faux-moralist extremists who drive our
disastrous war on drugs. His voice is that of a fanatic, not one of
reason.

Allan Erickson, Drug Policy Forum of Oregon, Eugene, Ore.