LIFE-SAVING CANNABIS

How can we, as a society, continue to tolerate the legislative fiction that
keeps life-saving cannabis from the Jacki Rickerts of the world,
"Debatable: Should medical use of marijuana be legal in Wisconsin?" (Nov.
30)? The people of Wisconsin have already spoken loud and clear on the
issue of medical marijuana. A February 2002 poll commissioned by Is My
Medicine Legal Yet? a group Jacki and I co-founded in 2000, found that 80.3
percent of Wisconsinites support legalizing medical marijuana
(immly.org/poll.htm).

Only 16 percent statewide were opposed, meaning that medical cannabis has
five supporters to every opponent.

So if 80 percent of us support letting people with multiple sclerosis,
cancer, glaucoma, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome or other illnesses use medicinal
pot, it should mean that of our 132 state legislators, 99 Assembly
representatives and 33 senators, about 106 should support it. In other
words, if the people we elect to represent us actually represented us,
medical marijuana would have been a reality years ago, and a lot of good
folks would have had it a little easier. Please let your elected
representatives know that you are one of the 80 percent and that this
session, you expect Rep. Gregg Underheim's bill to not only get a committee
hearing, but also a full debate and a vote up or down in the legislature.
To continue to ignore the suffering of ailing Wisconsinites any further is
unconscionable.

Gary Storck, director of communications

Is My Medicine Legal YET? www.immly.org, Madison