MARIJUANA IS NOT MEDICINE

Re "Medicinal pot's leader receives lenient sentence," June 5: I was
disgusted by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's decision to sentence Ed
Rosenthal to one day in jail for his participation in a criminal marijuana
growing enterprise. Is it any wonder Americans insist in minimum mandatory
sentencing when this is the moral cowardice the judiciary displays?
Medicine is not determined by popular opinion and activist propaganda, but
by science. And marijuana is not medicine by any stretch of science.

Furthermore, because of how the body metabolizes marijuana, clinical
research has shown the physical impairment caused by marijuana lasts up to
24 hours, far longer than the euphoria the marijuana user seeks. Anyone who
smokes marijuana more than a couple of times a week, and drives a car, has
probably driven the vehicle impaired. And drugged drivers are more likely
to be involved in a fatal auto accident than a drunken driver. At the very
least, so-called "medical" marijuana users should not be allowed to drive.
It's time to repeal Proposition 215, and let doctors and science dictate
medicine, not illegal drug users and their well financed activist allies.

- - A.W. Scott, Lincoln