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READER ILLUMINATES LONG-TERM WEED STUDIES

In Anthony Bruno's letter, "Protesters Should Be Rational Not Radical," which printed on Nov.  20, Mr.  Bruno tries to sound like he knows what he is talking about.  Bruno says, "No one has died from smoking marijuana because it's illegal; therefore there have been no long-term studies."

No one has died from an overdose of pot is because it IS the safest of the intoxicants.  In 1988, DEA administrative law judge Francis Young said "cannabis is the safest therapeutic substance known to man."

Long term studies date as far back as the late 1800s.  Those studies include: The Indian Hemp Commission Report ( 1894 ) -- "the Commission are of opinion that the moderate use of hemp drugs appears to cause no appreciable physical injury ofany kind." Also, the Panama Canal Military Study ( 1916 -1929 ); the La Guardia Committee Report in 1944; the Baroness Wootton Report ( UK, 1968 ); the Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse ( Shaffer Commission, 1972 ); the Institute of Medicine study published in 1999.

UCLA's Donald Tashkin reported in 2005 that marijuana smoking -- "even heavy long-term use" -- doesn't cause cancer.

Bruno also says, "if any member of this organization wants to sit there and tell me that smoking five joints a day for twenty years will not have adverse health effects, then I would love to laugh in their face." Tashkin's study showed that even among people who had smoked more than 20,000 joints in their life did not have an increased risk of cancer.

I suggest, if he is sincerely interested, Mr.  Bruno research the foundation of testimony underlying cannabis prohibition.

What he will find is that pot's illegal status is founded upon bigoted lies and perjured testimony before the Congress of the U.S.  and a continuous campaign of "Reefer Madness" propaganda by our government's professional -- and perpet-ual -- drug war bureaucracy.

Allan Erickson

Drug Policy Forum of Oregon