MEDICAL MARIJUANA

In his May 30 column on medical marijuana, Clarence Page shot a few blanks.

He begins by discounting the doubling of THC content from 1980 to 1997 as
not a significant increase.

He then cites the interesting nonstatistic that "thousands of Americans
have become criminals by purchasing marijuana rather than seeing their
loved ones suffer." Not many journalism students would get a passing grade
if they offered such unsubstantiated claims in their homework.

He concludes with the notion that marijuana-dealing street gangs "offer us
another good reason to legalize marijuana." That reasoning would also apply
to heroin-dealing gangs. Marijuana is obviously a gateway drug in more ways
than one.

W.T. Boyd

Olathe