COMPASSION ISSUE

A November 2005 nationwide Gallup poll showed that 78 percent of
Americans "support making marijuana legally available for doctors to
prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering." State medical
marijuana initiatives have been repeatedly endorsed by voters. Three
state legislatures -- in Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont -- have had
the courage to stop arresting patients without a drive from the voters.

This isn't a partisan issue -- it's a compassion issue.

Many of the legal alternatives proposed by opponents of medical
marijuana are too expensive and too addictive and have too many side
effects to be good medicine for all patients. Chemotherapy patients
who are too nauseated to eat or swallow a pill shouldn't have to fear
arrest if they -- and their doctors -- find that smoking marijuana is
the most effective means of treating their symptoms.

When they have their doctors' approval, patients should be able to
use medical marijuana without fear of arrest and imprisonment. They
also should be able to rely on a safe supply of marijuana, without
having to resort to the dangerous criminal market.

State government should use tax money to prosecute violent crime, not
punish medical marijuana users.

For all of these reasons, our Legislature should enact laws that
protect patients from arrest and imprisonment.

Don Reynolds, Ponder