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