LET PAIN-SUFFERERS HAVE MARIJUANA

Thank you for the medical marijuana cartoon on your Tuesday op-ed
page. Research shows overwhelming benefits of using marijuana in pain
control. When thousands of people, including myself, have had to stop
taking Cox-2 inhibitors, such as Vioxx, it is time to make medical
marijuana a choice available for doctors to prescribe for chronic-pain
sufferers.

I am sure your readers have family or friends with Parkinson's,
multiple sclerosis, chronic-fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, to name
a few conditions and diseases which cause severe pain and/ or
sleeplessness. Should we not have the freedom to use this
centuries-old drug to make life bearable? It's time for Florida, and
the country, to offer this option.

Nancy Orcutt, Sarasota