REPORT 'MEDICAL MARIJUANA' NEWS

Editor, Index-Tribune: Cancer patients' pharmaceutical medication stolen!
Imagine the headlines that story would produce! (Are Sonoma's patients next
to be raided?)

What newspaper has had the courage to report the Oct. 25 raid by 30 armed
DEA agents at the 960-patient Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center? Sick and
dying of AIDS, cancer, epilepsy and glaucoma, patients had their doctors'
written referrals. They are again forced to visit back alleys for inferior
medicine. Those of us who are medical marijuana patients are again
terrorized by the federal government. In a federal court you cannot even
mention the words "medical marijuana." Isn't the lack of freedom of speech
itself newsworthy?

These political raids are the result of the U.S. Supreme Court parroting
federal government that says marijuana has no medical value, is too
dangerous to prescribe, and is scheduled with heroin. The DEA's own judge,
Francis Young, after two years of research, in 1988 said, "Marijuana, in its
natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known
to man."

It's past time newspapers have the courage to report true news. Or do you
prefer to join the federal government in its hypocritical war on "certain"
drugs?

David R. Ford