MAN FIGHTS LAW TO HELP AILING WIFE

For at least 15 years now I've watched Jim Miller of Toms River and his
wife Cheryl fight for medicine she says relieves some of the symptoms of
multiple sclerosis.

You are not a criminal, Mr. Miller, you are an outlaw, and there is a big
difference.

One breaks the law out of greed, and the other does it out of necessity or
a belief in what should be right.

I've watched you push your wife to the nation's capital in a wheelchair,
then watched the government deny you even the opportunity to be heard. I
wish I was so selfless. The devotion you have shown to your wife I only
hope I could show if called on.

You, Mr. Miller, are not a criminal. The criminals are those who would
accept federal grant money to fight a drug war so that they can make more
than $120,000 a year. They will tell you that marijuana doesn't work, and
that arresting you for using it is for your own good. We already have had
several states pass medical marijuana laws, but the federal government
refuses to allow doctors to prescribe it. If they try, the government says
they will take their federal prescription license from them. Is that
democracy? It doesn't sound like democracy to me. It sounds like threats.

If this was 36 years ago, and I was sitting in a foxhole in Vietnam, I know
that I would want the guy next to me to be just like you. I salute you. You
have taken on the machine, and fought the good fight, win, lose or draw.
What else could the world ever ask of you?

What gives law enforcement the right to deny medication to those who have
been given a slow death sentence by God, destiny or whatever you believe
in? What makes you think they should die in pain so you can make money and
have a job?

EDWARD H. DECKER, Forked River