MEDICAL POT DEFENDED (3 OF 3)

NORML RESPONDS

Editor -- In his column about the recent defeat of state drug reform
initiatives (Nov. 11), Joseph Perkins wrongly asserts that the National
Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws and the Marijuana Policy Project
have a hidden agenda on drugs.

There is nothing secret about NORML's position: We favor the right of
adults to use marijuana legally, just like alcohol and tobacco, a policy we
believe to be best for users and nonusers alike. We emphatically do not
advocate legalization of other drugs (which many of our members oppose) nor
do we necessarily insist that marijuana be "legalized" in the sense of
being commercially advertised and mass marketed.

Our support for medical marijuana is based on the testimony of thousands of
patients, physicians and researchers, who have found it both safe and
effective in relieving pain and suffering. It is not ourselves, but drug
warriors like drug czar John Walters and Perkins who have displayed a
callous disregard for truth and compassion by denying seriously ill
patients access to medical marijuana on the spurious grounds that the issue
is "drug legalization. "

DALE GIERINGER

Coordinator, California NORML

San Francisco