Pubdate: Mon, 6 Sep 2010
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2010 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Contact: http://www.jsonline.com/general/30627794.html
Website: http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n718/a02.html
Author: Charles Wood

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

WHAT THEY WANT IS LEGALIZATION

I was intrigued by the letter from Gary Storck of the National 
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law (Your opinions, Sept. 
3). He wrote that the reason people are leaving Wisconsin is due to 
our lawmakers failing to pass legislation allowing medical marijuana.

Really?

I testified in Madison last December about how medical marijuana is a 
sham. But among the reasons cited in favor of it, there was no 
mention of people leaving Wisconsin for this product.

Wisconsin has medical marijuana. Doctors can prescribe Marinol for 
their patients, but they rarely do because marijuana is a relatively 
poor painkiller. Please stop hiding behind those who are sick to 
achieve your goal, which is to smoke marijuana legally. Doctors have 
the option of treating pain with measured, studied, safely 
manufactured medicines. Marijuana has inconsistent THC levels, 
aggravates lung tissues, contains carcinogens and often is laced with 
pesticide.

How is medical marijuana working? In San Diego, Calif., medical 
marijuana customers are mostly 18- to 25-year-old males; in Colorado 
the explosive number of pot shops that have opened has strained local 
government resources. In Oregon, a few unscrupulous doctors travel 
the state and write marijuana prescriptions for about $50 each after 
they determine a patient needs pain relief. Time of examination? 
Sixty to 90 seconds.

It is likely that because those fighting to legalize marijuana have 
attached the word "medical" to their fight, further debate will 
occur. Let us hope that physicians, pharmacists, scientists, law 
enforcement and community leaders are involved in those discussions 
so that we do not get hoodwinked the way 14 other states did, which 
now wish they had not approved medical marijuana.

Capt. Charles Wood

Metropolitan Drug Unit Commander, Waukesha County

President, Wisconsin Narcotics Officers Association

Waukesha
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