STOP WARRING ON THE SICK

Thanks for publishing Don Lyons' sensible letter about medical marijuana,
"DEA should desist," Sunday, June 16.

With polls showing Americans support giving sick, disabled and dying
patients safe and legal access, it is time for this cruel and irrational
war to end. We must remember that law enforcement resources are finite, and
that every arrest and prosecution for marijuana means that resources that
could have gone toward protecting Americans from real crime and terrorism
instead goes to punish otherwise law-abiding citizens for using a non-toxic
herb.

No one knows the real number of Americans who use marijuana, but it is
likely much higher than the 9 million figure that Lyons noted. As far as
arrests, the number for 2000 alone was nearly 735,000, with the 2001 total
certainly the same or higher.

Federal authorities should at least move the sick and dying off the
battlefield and give them legal access to their medicine. But overall,
marijuana prohibition is a counterproductive fraud that denies medicine to
the sick, income to farmers, and unfairly targets peaceful Americans for
arrest and jail.

And as we wage a war on terror and fund terrorism with oil imports from
Middle Eastern nations, (remember, most of the 9/11 hijackers were from
Saudi Arabia) we should also consider that hemp biodiesel fuel can be
produced by American farmers for 34 cents per gallon. Imagine, we can save
the American farmer and end our reliance on imported oil if federal
authorities would simply come to their senses.

Gary Storck

Madison