MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS ARE NOT JUSTIFIED

Your article on federal efforts to undermine Oregon's voter-approved
medical marijuana law ("Search and Seizure," ODE, Nov. 8) underscored the
need for a state distribution system free from federal intrusion.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration
during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical
Association. White Americans did not even begin to smoke marijuana until a
soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding "reefer madness"
propaganda.

Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been
counterproductive at best. An estimated 38 percent of Americans have now
smoked pot. The reefer madness myths have long been discredited, forcing
the drug war gravy train to spend millions of tax dollars on politicized
research, trying to find harm in a relatively harmless plant.

The direct experience of millions of Americans contradicts the
sensationalistic myths used to justify marijuana prohibition. Illegal drug
use is the only public health issue wherein key stakeholders are not only
ignored, but actively persecuted and incarcerated. In terms of medical
marijuana, those stakeholders happen to be cancer and AIDS patients. Oregon
patients may be protected, but medical marijuana providers aren't.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has conducted numerous paramilitary
raids on providers in California and Oregon. The very same DEA that claims
illicit drug use funds terrorism is forcing sick patients into the hands of
street dealers. Apparently federal marijuana laws are more important than
protecting the country from terrorism. Students interested in helping
reform harmful drug laws should contact Students for Sensible Drug Policy
at www.ssdp.org.

Robert Sharpe, program officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.