Pubdate: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 Source: Kansas City Star (MO) Copyright: 2002 The Kansas City Star Contact: http://www.kcstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221 Author: W.T. Boyd MEDICAL MARIJUANA In his May 30 column on medical marijuana, Clarence Page shot a few blanks. He begins by discounting the doubling of THC content from 1980 to 1997 as not a significant increase. He then cites the interesting nonstatistic that "thousands of Americans have become criminals by purchasing marijuana rather than seeing their loved ones suffer." Not many journalism students would get a passing grade if they offered such unsubstantiated claims in their homework. He concludes with the notion that marijuana-dealing street gangs "offer us another good reason to legalize marijuana." That reasoning would also apply to heroin-dealing gangs. Marijuana is obviously a gateway drug in more ways than one. W.T. Boyd Olathe - --- MAP posted-by: Beth