Letter of the Day:

RESEARCH IS CLEAR ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

As a family practitioner with more than 20 years of experience, I have
treated numerous patients who have told me that marijuana was
effective in combating their symptoms. This has been particularly true
of patients suffering from peripheral neuropathy, an excruciatingly
painful condition for which there is currently no FDA-approved treatment.

Now a top-notch study, published in last month's issue of the
peer-reviewed journal Neurology, has come to the exact same conclusion
that my patients have been telling me for years: Medical marijuana is
an effective treatment for this kind of pain.

So I had to shake my head when I heard that Dakota County Attorney
James Backstrom testified that there are "no scientific studies"
supporting marijuana's effectiveness. In addition to this very recent
article, supportive studies have appeared in respected journals like
the American Journal of Surgery, the British Journal of Cancer and
Molecular Pharmacology, among many others.

If Backstrom feels that his training is sufficient to debate with the
researchers, doctors and patients who have firsthand knowledge of
medical marijuana's benefits, that's his prerogative. But to claim
that "no scientific studies" demonstrate those benefits is
demonstrably false.

DR. DAVID LANG, BURNSVILLE