EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT MARIJUANA CAN BE MEDICINE

If Jeffrey A. Schaler wants to legalize every drug for everybody, he
certainly has a right to that opinion ("Decision to smoke pot shouldn't
involve doctor," Opinion / Commentary, May 12). But it is odd to see him
join forces with arch-prohibitionists in demonizing and distorting the
views of medical marijuana advocates.

And the Marijuana Policy Project - which led the fight for the medical
marijuana bill awaiting Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s signature - does not
"argue that marijuana is a panacea." We simply point out the large and
growing body of scientific evidence showing that marijuana can relieve
pain, nausea and certain other specific symptoms in some patients for whom
standard medications fail.

Just this month, for instance, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet
Neurology published a review of data noting that marijuana's active
components "inhibit pain in virtually every experimental pain paradigm."

Ideologues of all stripes notwithstanding, the evidence shows that
marijuana is indeed a medicine.

Bruce Mirken

Washington

The writer is director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project.