SOURCE OF MEDICINAL MARIJUANA IS A CONCERN

Your Oct. 17 editorial supporting the use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes fails to address a number of concerns. Apart from the
debatable issue as to whether marijuana is the most effective way for
patients with various illnesses to control pain or suffering, there
are also questions of quality control, dosage and supply.

How are quality and dosage determined or controlled when using a
substance such as marijuana for pain or symptoms such as nausea?
Dosage and substance quality would seem to be of particular importance
in the case of individuals who may not be suffering from a painful,
terminal illness but who may be prescribed marijuana for an
indeterminate or protracted duration, as in the treatment of glaucoma.

The Supreme Court has left intact state laws permitting the
prescription use of marijuana. Physicians in states allowing medicinal
use of marijuana can continue to prescribe the substance.

Never discussed is where medicinal marijuana comes from. Is the source
simply to be marijuana available on the street, or is it to be grown
by medicinal marijuana growers? Do the states that permit medicinal
marijuana use also permit the growing of marijuana for medicinal
purposes? It would seem pretty risky to simply go to whatever street
vendor is around to purchase marijuana of unknown strength, with
unknown impurities, from an unknown source and to then use it for the
treatment of a medical condition.

The issue is bigger than you portrayed in your editorial. If medicinal
marijuana is to become a part of the legitimate range of drugs that
physicians may prescribe, it would seem that there should be attention
paid to the source of this drug and its administration and to the
quality-control criteria that we expect for any other substance used
to treat medical conditions.

A discussion as to who will be permitted to grow medicinal marijuana
and what will be allowable or required in its cultivation is also needed.

Erica M. Sufrin, Ph.d.

Voorheesville