TIME TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Editor:

Well, after seven years of lobbying and countless letters written and
received from various government officials, the House of Commons is finally
going to vote this month on whether to decriminalize marijuana in Canada.

It's about time.

The first documented use of marijuana as a medicine appears about 2300 BC
when the legendary Chinese emporer Shen Nung prescribed chu-ma (female
hemp/marijuana) for the treatment of constipation, gout, beri-beri, malari,
rheumatism and menstrual problems. (Queen Victoria used marijuana for
menstrual problems.)

Marijuana was first introduced to European medicine by Dr. William
O'Shaughnessy in the middle of the 19th century. He described the
inebriating effects of marijuana as being "The most cheerful kind, causing
the person to sing and dance, to eat food with great relish and to seek
aphrodisiac enjoyments. In the persons of a quarrelsome nature it
occasions, as might be expected, an exasperation of their normal tendency.
The intoxication lasts three hours, when sleep supervenes. No nausea or
sickness of the stomach succeeds nor are the bowels at all affected; the
next day there is a slight giddiness and vascularity of the eyes, but no
other symptoms worth recording."

If our federal government votes in favour of decriminalizing marijuana next
week, it will send a message to the youth of Canada, and all Canadians,
they are not out of touch with reality. The reality is it's legal to smoke
tobacco in Canada, a well-known killer, and illegal to smoke marijuana in
Canada, a well-known medicine.

Go figure?

Vote yes to decriminalize marijuana in Canada! Do it for our health; do it
for Canada.

Kevin Millership

Kamloops