MARIJUANA LAWS

There were speeches from lawyers about freedom, and pleas from doctors for
compassion, and some rhetoric against the Bush administration.

Then the patients began to roll forward in their wheelchairs to get their
joints and pot cupcakes. A gaunt AIDS patient said that marijuana helped
him eat again, an elderly man with post-polio syndrome grinned and picked
up his pre-rolled joints, and a patient suffering from pancreatic cancer
simply said thank you as the mayor and most of the city council of Santa
Cruz, Calif. handed out marijuana to patients who needed it.

It was great to be in attendance. The message was not of defiance, but
freedom. Freedom to smoke or eat a plant God made and gave mankind. I'd
like to ask the federal authorities -- what would you do if your own loved
ones needed the relief and help marijuana gives? I pray in my lifetime I
can buy marijuana at a pharmacy and not off some street corner.

Donald D. Lyons, Racine