MARIJUANA CAN BE USED SAFELY

The article, "Group pushes medical use of marijuana," (Aug. 11) starts
off on the wrong foot and then stubs several toes along the way.

Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long says "there's no control on
who's using it (marijuana), who may be selling it." That describes the
situation now. Under current pot prohibition, there is no control of
cannabis.

The article makes points by offering an excellent list of conditions
the plant is used for medically. It then falls back to sophomoric
reporting with an inaccurate summation of the recent report on
psychosis and cannabis from the U.K. Rather than showing causation,
the report only shows correlation, and the article fails to mention
that the 40 percent number is only a minuscule increase among the
general population.

Enough with the obfuscations on pot. Humanity has used cannabis for
thousands of years -- safely -- with no deaths from overdose. The Drug
Enforcement Agency's administrative law judge Francis Young said in
1988 that cannabis "is one of the safest therapeutically active
substances known to man."

Allan Erickson,

Drug Policy Forum Of Oregon,

Eugene, OR