DON'T EXAGGERATE HEALTH RISKS OF MEDICINAL MARIJUANA

Re: Ignoring health hazards of marijuana 'hypocritical', March 7.

The claim that medicinal cannabis is more harmful than tobacco has little
recognized scientific support. It represents a moralistic stance that
capitalizes on current anti-tobacco hysteria to support continued cannabis
prohibition.

It is surely more dangerous to the respiratory passages to live in a
polluted urban area such as London or Los Angeles than to have a few daily
puffs of medical cannabis. The quantity and frequency of marijuana use
required for a given application such as anti-nausea is low, so the smoke
intake is very modest compared with the around-the-clock breathing of
polluted air.

There are thousands of deaths yearly in major cities directly caused by air
polluted with a wide range of carcinogens and irritants (in the U.K.,
microparticulates from diesel exhaust alone are thought to kill 10,000
people a year). In contrast, no one has identified a single death or cancer
caused by marijuana smoking.

Why should living in polluted air seem an acceptable, even disregarded
risk, while light to moderate medical marijuana smoking is denounced as
unconscionable?

The smoked method of using medical marijuana may lead to some
as-yet-unproved harm to the respiratory passages. But there is simply no
practical, logical, or medical argument that can justify the risking of
stomach lesions when taking Aspirin for its neurological effects, while
denouncing the smoking of medical marijuana for effective therapeutic
purposes, because of the risk of possible lung damage. Is lung tissue more
sacred than the stomach lining?

Peter Webster,

Auvare, France,

Review Editor,

International Journal of Drug Policy