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MARIJUANA DANGEROUS; THERE IS NO MEDICAL USE

In a Readers Viewpoints article on Feb.  19 entitled "DEA judge found marijuana beneficial," Kenneth Wolski dragged out the old drug legalizers' saw that a judge in 1988 found that marijuana could be helpful for certain medical treatments.  Like all members of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and others who wish to legalize drug use, he totally ignores the facts of that hearing.

Based on his review of the evidence, then-Drug Enforcement Administrator John Lawn and his successor Robert Bonner both refused to allow marijuana to be rescheduled for medical use.  In 1994, the U.S.  Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.  upheld Bonner's decision stating that the Drug Eenforcement Administration made its denial based on scientific study and recognized experts, while NORML, as usual, had relied on, "anecdotal information." NORML's usual "anecdotal information" comes from dope smokers who say it makes them feel good, hardly a reason to classify it as a medicine.

In fact, there are over 1,000 medical studies which show the harmful effects of marijuana.

Recently, the U.S.  Supreme Court unanimously decided that smoked marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use."

Even the Institute of Medicine study, sought by the drug legalizers, warned of the dangers of smoked marijuana -- we already have it available in pill form - although it is rarely used because people want to smoke dope -- and said that the studies should be accompanied by the development of a new delivery system, such as an inhaler, "that does not involve inhaling harmful smoke." And lastly, despite Wolski's ridiculous scare tactics regarding giving glaucoma patients marijuana as a medicine, it has been rejected by the American Medical Association, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Glaucoma Society, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Cancer Society.

TERRENCE P.  FARLEY

First Assistant Prosecutor Director, Ocean County Narcotics Strike Force Toms River