SOMETHING ABOUT MARIJUANA

Why Are Alcohol, Tobacco, Obesity Acceptable Risks?

Editor, The Times:

I was pleased to see your editorial support for medical marijuana
("Misjudging marijuana," Times, Sept. 10), but disheartened to see the
implied disapproval of recreational use of pot. Your concluding statement
was, "The problem is ensuring that marijuana actually is used for medical,
not recreational, purposes." Why, precisely, is that a problem? Disapproval
for either use is not supported by the data we have.

Medical marijuana is an issue today because of the disconnect between
government policy and medical reality. Government policy insists that
marijuana has no therapeutic value, while hundreds of doctors and thousands
of patients have discovered that there is in fact significant value. The
citizens of Washington and many other states largely agree.

There seems to be no mechanism whereby the government can admit it is
wrong, so thousands of government agents are forced to engage in a dance of
denial, while thousands of sick and dying people are denied a source of relief.

Similarly, government policy insists marijuana has no safe recreational
value, while literally tens of millions of U.S. citizens have discovered
differently. The vast preponderance of evidence is that recreational use of
marijuana by adults is far safer than other permitted recreational drugs,
to wit, alcohol, and that the health risks of marijuana are dwarfed by the
health risks of alcohol, tobacco and obesity. So, if we permit adults to
engage in consumption of alcohol, tobacco and food, what is the logic for
constraining their choices in other, safer pursuits?

The problem is not recreational use of marijuana, it is the U.S.
government's cynical policy of war against its own citizens, for the sake
of preserving the federal drug-enforcement bureaucracy.

Andrew Brunette, Bellevue