DOCTORS CAN OFFER POT

Editor, Index-Tribune:

As author on two critically acclaimed books on marijuana, I must make
it clear that the information on the front page of The Sonoma
Index-Tribune (March 2) "Medical marijuana co-op set to open,"
included a major inaccuracy. It stated: "Doctors who prescribe the
drug are subject to revocation of their licenses by the state medical
board and prosecution by the federal government." That is no longer
true! It is misinformation such as this which is frightening doctors
from recommending medical cannabis to sick and dying patients.

On Oct. 14, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court killed the Bush
administration plan to punish doctors who recommend marijuana to their
patients. The justices, without commentary, left intact a ruling by a
federal appeals court in San Francisco last October that said doctors
and patients have the constitutional right to discuss the subject
freely without fear of federal penalties against the physicians. The
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has sought to revoke the
doctors' licenses to prescribe federally regulated narcotics - vital
to many medical practices - also to disqualify them from the Medicare
program, literally putting them out of business.

The DEA falsely charges that marijuana has no medical value, contrary
to scientific evidence that it has. The DEA's own Judge Francis Young,
in 1988, stated: "Marijuana in its natural form, is one of the safest
therapeutically active substances known to man." Due to corrupt
politics, the DEA administer can reject their own judge's findings.

The DEA has stated repeatedly and unequivocally that marijuana has no
medical value, and consequently has classified it as a Schedule I
controlled substance, along with heroin - even though the synthetic
copycat drug Marinol, with the same psychoactive ingredient, is
classified in Schedule III. I am offering to pay the DEA $1 million
cash if, within one year, the government can prove that marijuana has
no medical value, on the condition that if it cannot, the federal
government agrees to release all prisoners presently serving time for
nonviolent marijuana-related offenses, to cease arresting and charging
others with such offenses and to move marijuana from Schedule I to
Schedule III.

David R. Ford