THE BEST DAMN LETTER WE RECEIVED ALL WEEK!

So, drug czar John Walters is back in Nevada again. Get used to it. With
petition signatures being gathered to get a marijuana legalization
initiative on November's ballot, you haven't seen the last of him -- not by
a long shot.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy is by law not supposed to be
involved in state initiatives. That doesn't matter. Czar Walters is going to
be Nevada's best buddy until after November -- but he will of course be
visiting to talk about the national problem of prescription drug abuse, not
a state initiative. If a reporter should happen to ask about his opinion of
the state initiative, his real plan will work and he can respond however he
wants. How clever.

Czar Walters was in Nevada to tell everybody that prescription drug abuse
has hit an all-time high and is now second only to marijuana in what he
calls the national drug problem. There is a sad irony here. Czar Walters is
against the rights of seriously ill and dying Americans to use marijuana
medically, saying that there are safer more reliable drugs available for
them to use. Now, when they use those allegedly safer drugs, they can
apparently join the new national prescription drug problem.

Perhaps medical marijuana patients have been telling the truth all along
when they say marijuana is less dangerous than their legal prescriptions. Do
you suppose that they are also telling the truth about marijuana relieving
their pain better than the available addictive alternatives? If you ask John
Walters, he will say no -- but he's not the one dying in pain. It's simply
his job.

JIM MILLER

CO-FOUNDER

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS PATIENTS UNION

TOMS RIVER, N.J.

Editor's note: Each issue, CityLife selects its favorite letter. This week's
winner is courtesy of Jim Miller. For submitting the letter of the week, Jim
wins a copy of graphic novel Y: The Last Man -- One Small Step.