'LYING' ON DRUGS

It's amazing that officials in Iowa are so far behind the times that they
are ignorant of the benefits of medical marijuana. Maybe a few of them or
their loved ones will have to come down with serious carcinomas that require
relief from the chemotherapy to tell the truth.

Aside from the medical uses there is another very good reason to legalize
marijuana - all of the reasons given for pot prohibition by Mary Sloan and
the rest of Iowa's drug crusaders are complete lies. That's why... Sloan
dares suggest cannabis is addictive.

Iowa's drug warriors base their policies on absurd fictions like:

"The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate
races. [It] influences Negroes to to look at white people in the eye, step
on white men's shadows and look at white women twice" (Hearst newspapers
nationwide, 1934).

"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity,
criminality and death... {Smoking] one [marijuana] cigarette might develop a
homicidal mania, probably to kill his brother." (-1937 Legislative Testimony
To Outlaw Marijuana).

The lies used to outlaw marijuana are so ridiculous that the proper response
to the term "marijuana crime" would be gales of hilarious laughter aimed at
Mary Sloan, Mark Prosser and any other proponents of marijuana prohibition,
except for the fact that putting people in jail for "Reefer Madness" is no
joke.

There was never any good reason to outlaw marijuana in 1937 and there is no
good reason now.

Redford Givens, San Francisco