MARIJUANA DANGEROUS; THERE IS NO MEDICAL USE

In a Readers Viewpoints article on Feb. 19 entitled "DEA judge found
marijuana beneficial," Kenneth Wolski dragged out the old drug legalizers'
saw that a judge in 1988 found that marijuana could be helpful for certain
medical treatments. Like all members of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws and others who wish to legalize drug use, he
totally ignores the facts of that hearing.

Based on his review of the evidence, then-Drug Enforcement Administrator
John Lawn and his successor Robert Bonner both refused to allow marijuana
to be rescheduled for medical use. In 1994, the U.S. Court of Appeals in
Washington, D.C. upheld Bonner's decision stating that the Drug
Eenforcement Administration made its denial based on scientific study and
recognized experts, while NORML, as usual, had relied on, "anecdotal
information." NORML's usual "anecdotal information" comes from dope smokers
who say it makes them feel good, hardly a reason to classify it as a medicine.

In fact, there are over 1,000 medical studies which show the harmful
effects of marijuana.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided that smoked marijuana
has "no currently accepted medical use."

Even the Institute of Medicine study, sought by the drug legalizers, warned
of the dangers of smoked marijuana -- we already have it available in pill
form - although it is rarely used because people want to smoke dope -- and
said that the studies should be accompanied by the development of a new
delivery system, such as an inhaler, "that does not involve inhaling
harmful smoke." And lastly, despite Wolski's ridiculous scare tactics
regarding giving glaucoma patients marijuana as a medicine, it has been
rejected by the American Medical Association, the National Multiple
Sclerosis Society, the American Glaucoma Society, the American Academy of
Ophthalmology and the American Cancer Society.

TERRENCE P. FARLEY

First Assistant Prosecutor Director, Ocean County Narcotics Strike Force
Toms River