MARIJUANA SERVES MEDICINAL PURPOSES

Editor, Times-Dispatch: I would like to take this opportunity to reply to
Lawrence Lanberg's comments regarding the medicinal use of marijuana for
treating a variety of illnesses. Lanberg concludes his first paragraph by
stating that "I'm actually quite surprised I haven't heard resounding
laughter from the current medical community." Perhaps that is because many
physicians and studies support the use of legalized medicinal marijuana in
the treatment of patients suffering from AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, multiple
sclerosis, epilepsy, and chronic pain. Marijuana is one of the safest
therapeutically active substances known. No one has ever died from an
overdose, and it has a wide variety of therapeutic applications: relief
from nausea and increase of appetite, reduction of intraocular (within the
eye) pressure, reduction of muscle spasms, and relief from chronic pain.

Medicinal applications have been deemed legitimate by at least one court,
legislature, and/or government agency in the United States. Many patients
also report that marijuana is useful for treating arthritis, migraine,
menstrual cramps, alcohol and opiate addiction, and depression and other
debilitating mood disorders.

Lanberg is confused between the medicinal application of marijuana
(prescribed) and recreational use. True, medicinal marijuana could be
abused by its user, just as prescribed drugs such as Percocet, Vicodin, and
others are at times. He concludes, "Pot smoking gives one even more harm
per puff," having linked it to tobacco use in his final paragraph. I would
rather provide the patient who is dying from AIDS, the patient suffering
through chemotherapy, glaucoma, and MS, with what could be the best form of
relief from their agony and suffering than to drug them up with pills.

Charles W. Cranford

Richmond