IT'S PART BIG BUSINESS, TOO

Your editorial "U.S. on wrong side of medical marijuana battle"
(Friday) says: "We know why the Bush administration and Congress are
opposed to medical marijuana -- part habit, part political cowardice,
part ignorance, part indifference, part pandering to the most extreme
conservative elements."

You forgot one further reason: heavy lobbying. Lots of it. Marijuana,
which offers unique benefits in countless medical conditions, can grow
anywhere, and is non-patentable, scares the living daylights out of
Big Pharma. And hemp -- from the same plant, cannabis -- scares many
more big industries: textiles, paper, oil and plastics.

Marijuana is, in part, a fictitious pretext: The real target is hemp.
One acre of cannabis, over a 20-year period, yields as much cellulose
(i.e. energy) as 4 acres of trees (USDA data). Need I say more?

Giovanni Borla,

Milano, Italy