Pubdate: Sat, 16 Mar 2002
Source: Trenton Times, The (NJ)
Copyright: 2002 The Times
Contact:  http://www.njo.com/times/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/458
Author: Kenneth R. Wolski
Note: Headline by Map editor

IS THIS COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM?

Dear Sir:

The federal government's campaign against seriously ill Americans who use 
marijuana medicinally is an atrocity in the "war on drugs" ("Federal 
Boondoggle - Use of medical marijuana by terminally ill under siege," The 
Times, March 3, 2002.)  Agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration 
(DEA) recently closed several dispensaries in California that were 
providing marijuana to over a thousand patients.  Even in the midst of a 
war, it is considered humane to allow the sick and dying to be medically 
treated.  It is inhumane to do otherwise.

The dispensaries that the DEA agents closed were providing marijuana to 
patients with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma.  All these 
patients had marijuana recommended to them by licensed physicians in 
California.  The dispensaries were operating with the full cooperation of 
the local authorities, and in accordance with state law.  Mr. Bush had 
promised in his presidential campaign to let the states decide for 
themselves about medical marijuana.  Yet now, barely a year after the 
election, federal agents are attacking California's Compassionate Use Act, 
and the weakest members of society are made to suffer even more.  Is this 
compassionate conservatism?

Marijuana is a safe, effective and inexpensive therapeutic agent.  To deny 
sick and dying patients the relief available to them from medically 
recommended marijuana is unconscionable.

Sincerely yours,

Kenneth R. Wolski, RN/MPA
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