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KEEP IT ILLEGAL

Remember all those kids who "experimented" with marijuana? I assume that the double-blind testing and peer-reviewed reports they undertook justified those experiments.

Now these kids are middle-aged dopers, so instead of "experimenting," they claim dope is a remedy for everything from the pain of cancer to toenail fungus.  And their doctors? Shame on them for prescribing pot to mollify potheads rather than prescribing real medicine or Narcotics Anonymous.  These quacks ought to be prosecuted as accomplices.

As a former public defender, I can assure you marijuana users' sole purpose is to get high, and growers' and distributors' sole purpose is to make a buck off a bunch of fools.

Your Nov.  11 editorial argues that terminally ill, pain-stricken patients are robbed of their panacea.  Not true.  Marijuana has never been shown to be effective as medicine.  Over 30 years ago, psychiatrist Harold Kolansky proved marijuana's lasting adverse psychotic effects.  He was lambasted by pot advocates.

So much for the "medical" part of marijuana.  Patients need real medicine, not marijuana snake oil.  Pot needs to stay illegal unless and until it can be proven safe and effective as a regulated medicine.

We demand that of Thalidomide and Vioxx; why not THC?

Arthur Zeidman

Walnut Creek