CANNABIS GETS UNFAIR REPUTATION

Thanks for publishing an honest letter complaining about the continued
propaganda in the news media against cannabis.

I find it frustrating that many media outlets allow drug warriors to spew
propaganda unquestioned.

Recently, drug czar John Walters appeared on C-Span's Washington Journal to
discuss marijuana.

He said things like using marijuana as medicine only makes you feel good,
so you might as well be smoking crack cocaine.

When someone uses cannabis to prevent epileptic seizures or to prevent
spasms caused my multiple sclerosis, it's not about feeling good. It's
about preventing or reducing debilitating symptoms and illnesses.

To say smoking crack would give the same results is ignorant and insulting.

Walters should be fired or face criminal prosection for what he's
perpetrating on the American people, because he's either completely
uneducated about the past 10 years of cannabis research, or he's flat out
lying.

If cannabis isn't medicinal, then why are pharmaceutical companies
scrambling to create synthetic cannabinoids, the active components in cannabis?

There are over 60 cannabinoids found in cannabis and synthetic THC,
marinol, is only a single cannabinoid with terrible side effects, so it's
no replacement for natural cannabis.

Cannabis can be vaporized or eaten, so the harmful effects of smoking are
no excuse for our government's actions.

Past presidents, along with some current Democratic presidential candidates
and a slew of other politicians, have admitted to using cannabis.

Yet somehow the rest of Americans are criminalized for using it. Am I
missing something here?

I sincerely hope that news agencies like Florida Today will give equal time
and space to those of us who wish to offer the truth concerning cannabis.

Not more reefer madness.

Scott Russ

Baton Rouge, La.