LEGALIZE IT

I read your article on Aug. 20, "Patch to deliver marijuana chemicals," with
great skepticism. While it is wonderful that AIDS and cancer patients can now
get the medicine that they may need, the very facts cited in your article argue
for a cheaper, and more reasonable, course: legalization of marijuana.

The article states that cannabinoids don't have the side effects associated
with opiates, and UK researcher Audra Stinchcomb is quoted as saying, "They're
much safer as drugs."

To overdose on cannabis, a normal person must smoke almost 18 pounds of
cannabis at 10 percent THC content, or almost double normal street content. The
person would die of lack of oxygen first.

The article later states that cannabinoids can control neuropathy, with which
other medications struggle. This is because there are receptors in the human
brain specifically activated by cannabinoids. For more information, read The
Great Book of Hemp by Rowan Robertson or Ganja in Jamaica by Vera Rubin and
Lambros Comitas.

Legalization would also save the federal government billions of dollars a year
and save much-needed prison space. Banning cannabis and then spending money to
produce a patch with synthetic cannabinoids is akin to repealing the First
Amendment and then charging taxpayers for a certain number of words of free
speech.

Thomas Dodson

Lexington