Pubdate: September 8, 1997 Source: Skagit Valley Herald email: Contact: Initiative 685 Other drugs of no medical value On our next voting ballot will be an initiative dealing with the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. No one is more opposed to recreational drugs than I. Still I favor the measure. Not long ago I lost a very dear friend to cancer. A 60yearold lawabiding lady, she was forced to buy joints from unsavory characters because she could not obtain them legally and nothing else would relieve her nausea following chemotherapy. Morphine is legal for medical use. In the '20s and '40s it was the only addictive drug that most of us had ever heard of. I knew many World War I veterans who returned home hooked on the drug after receiving it for the pain of war wounds. They were pitiful characters who usually died of their addiction. Today morphine is the preferred drug administered for pain following surgery in hospitals. My husband, who fought in Gen. Patton's 4th Armored Division from the beaches of Normandy all the way across Europe during World War II, never experienced a flashback until he was given morphine a few years ago following major surgery. He immediately began reliving the horrors of that 50yearold war. Morphine remains a useful drug whose benefits outweigh its drawbacks in most cases. The same could be true of marijuana if that was the true purpose of the initiative. It is not! Included in the measure is legalization of heroin and cocaine. These drugs are of no medical value. Their only purpose is to alter rational thought and behavior and to distort the mind. Vote no on the initiative and bring back the legalization of medical marijuana at a later date. Florence Logsdon Anderson Mount Vernon