DENVER -- Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is -- involve medicine.

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana.

Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students.

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DENVER - Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store - which is what it really is - involve medicine.

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana. Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students.

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DANVILLE - When Chris Seyfert reflects on her blessings, several people come to mind.

Friends and family who supported her through her long journey to stay off drugs.

Her Prairie Center Health Systems counselors who gave her the tools to stay clean.

Even a judge, who sent her to jail a couple of times when she relapsed.

Without those people, she insisted, she likely would be dead or in prison.

"I'm thankful for my sobriety and that I'm alive," said Seyfert, who has been clean for nearly five months after years of drug abuse.

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Andrea Barthwell, 55, provides medical consulting, forensic work and lectures for clients as president of Encounter Medical Group P.C. in River Forest and founder and CEO of EMGlobal LLC, based in Arlington, Va. What she prescribes:

News from alternative sources such as www.projectcensored.org and www.reddit.com. "Members post stories from a variety of media; it tells you what people are thinking and talking about." Scouts Chicago Tribune, New York Times and USA Today for health-related human-interest stories; traveling three weeks a month, reads medical articles via laptop.

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I would like to differ with a Daily Herald commentary published on Sunday, Oct. 25 by Froma Harrop in which she called the crusade against marijuana ill-conceived. Harrop believes that by ending the ban on pot gangs will go away. She also assumes that the illicit profits earned by those dealing in drugs will instead result in billions of dollars in tax revenues for states where marijuana is a controlled substance. Chicago was classified in 2009 as a high intensity drug trafficking area by the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington, D.C. As such Chicago serves as the major transportation hub and distribution center for the retail sale of cocaine, heroin and marijuana throughout the Midwest and ranks second only to Los Angeles County in California, a state that has legalized the use of marijuana as medicine and where marijuana use has greatly increased since its legalization. Many Americans see no harm in legalizing cannabis. Last May the Illinois Senate narrowly passed SB1381 to legalize marijuana as medicine. Should the House follow through it would make Illinois the 14th state to allow the medical use of marijuana. Recently the U.S. Justice Department gave marijuana a nod of approval by announcing that it would ease up on prosecutions for medical marijuana.

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A recent letter to the editor praised state Sen. Larry Bomke for being a "people person" because his clipping service had sent a laminated picture of her that had been printed in your paper. While it was a nice gesture, I hardly consider it a proof of Bomke's care for his constituents.

I am disabled due to a birth defect in my spine. This birth defect forced me to have several vertebrae fused a few years ago. Unfortunately, the surgery came too late to prevent me from developing peripheral neuropathy, a condition where the nerves in my hands and feet have started dying. While they die they scream their heads off, causing a great deal of pain. This is a very slow-moving but incurable disease. I will live in pain the rest of my life. My doctors have me taking several opiates, including morphine, as well as a number of other drugs, all of which debilitate me almost as much as the pain does.

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Regarding the article "Nurses discuss health care reform with state legislators" (Northwest Herald, Nov. 11), I was wondering whether there was any discussion of the pending statewide medical marijuana legislation, Senate Bill 1381 and House Bill 2514?

The Illinois Nurses Association officially endorsed the need for a medical marijuana law in 2004 and surely the legality of medical marijuana is worth discussing with these lawmakers. Especially when so many are concerned with the costs of health care, an option that has no documented overdose fatalities and would be drastically cheaper than most pharmaceutical medicines merits some sort of mentioning.

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Arresting the ill for trying to alleviate their afflictions should be offensive to us all, regardless of political affiliations.

Numerous prestigious medical organizations support legal medical marijuana access for the seriously ill, including the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, the Illinois Nurses Association, the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Studies have shown that marijuana relieves debilitating symptoms including nausea, appetite loss and severe pain. It has been shown to increase the chances that HIV/AIDs and hepatitis C patients will stay on life-saving medications.

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This spring, the Illinois Senate passed SB1381, the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act.

Under this bill, seriously ill patients with a physician's recommendation would be eligible to obtain a registry identification card from the Illinois Department of Health entitling the patient or a designated primary caregiver to cultivate up to six cannabis plants and possess up to 2 ounces of dried cannabis. Currently, SB1381 is poised for a House vote in late 2009 or early 2010.

There are a number of compelling reasons to legally sanction the medical use of cannabis. First and foremost, there is a scientific consensus on the safety and efficacy of cannabis therapy as a treatment for a number of debilitating symptoms, including loss of appetite, nausea, pain, spasticity, wasting and vomiting. Marinol, a synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol pill, is not an adequate substitute for cannabis because it lacks the full gamut of therapeutic compounds found in cannabis and may be absorbed too slowly for patients suffering from acute symptoms.

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Well, another week has arrived. Again I will have to ask the sheriff for my medicine. I will be writing him separately. I still must ask you to free our medical marijuana.

I am going to try not to be vulgar or threatening. It has been hard to do of late because I am not even able to get my prescription medication. Can I borrow $50? I really could use my medication. I cannot believe in what was the greatest nation in history I cannot get my pain medication. Oh, have we so fallen.

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The compassionate use of medical marijuana bill, Senate Bill 1381, has gone to the Illinois House after making it through the Senate. I know that marijuana in any form is not a popular topic for politicians, but it is our elected representatives' duty to pass this bill.

There has been a propaganda war against marijuana for 70-plus years now and the mindless population has eaten up every false fact to date. Finally, people are beginning to realize the benefits of this plant and how it can positively affect patients with debilitating symptoms, including nausea, appetite loss and severe pain. It has been shown to increase the chances that HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C patients will stay on life-saving medications.

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Regarding your Oct. 30 editorial: While there have been studies showing that marijuana can shrink cancerous tumors, medical marijuana is essentially a palliative drug.

If a doctor recommends marijuana to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and it helps them feel better, then it's working.

In the end, medical marijuana is a quality-of-life issue best left to patients and their doctors. Drug warriors waging war on noncorporate drugs contend that organic marijuana is not an effective health intervention.

Their prescribed intervention for medical marijuana patients is handcuffs, jail cells and criminal records.

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Scott Carriere ("Doesn't like asking sheriff for medicine," Wednesday) should be asking his state legislators and the governor for his medicine, not the sheriff or FBI.

State representatives need to hear from their constituents and how much support there is for medical cannabis in Illinois so that lawmakers will not be afraid to vote in favor of Senate Bill 1381 or House Bill 2514 next spring. A 2008 Mason-Dixon poll found that 68 percent of Illinois residents support "allowing seriously and terminally ill patients to use and grow medical marijuana for personal use if their doctors recommend it."

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Residents Can Confront Alleged Dealers Through Drug Market Intervention

PEORIA -- Local police and prosecutors want to give power back to the people who live in crime-ridden neighborhoods and hope a new initiative will act as a catalyst to reviving Peoria's urban core.

At a news conference Wednesday, Peoria police and State's Attorney Kevin Lyons are expected to announce the arrests of about two dozen people in the past week as part of the new Drug Market Intervention. Then later in the day, residents can tell the alleged dealers what their activities have done to the area.

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Last week, the U.S. Justice Department rolled out what was touted as a major policy change, that it would no longer target and arrest severely ill folks who legally use medical marijuana with a doctor's prescription in states that allow it.

It's a significant shift, but one that sensibly prioritizes what's important for Uncle Sam -- stopping drug dealers and drug addicts, not law-abiding sick people.

Indeed, we have long had no problem with the notion of a state voting to permit strictly regulated cannabis use by people with life-threatening conditions, and have supported measures in the Legislature allowing it here. If anything we see it as a compassionate response, as some medical studies have shown the drug boosts appetite and calms nausea in some AIDS and cancer patients and reduces pain and suffering among those severely afflicted with multiple sclerosis or other ailments.

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CHAMPAIGN - Teens and younger children competed in a trivia contest at the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club on Wednesday, but it wasn't just fun and games.

A sample question: The most commonly abused drug in the United States is a) marijuana, b) alcohol, c) cocaine, d) heroin. (Answer: a).

The contest was one of many drug-prevention activities under way at the club as part of "Red Ribbon Week."

Coordinator Sonya Lynch said the theme of Red Ribbon Week ties in nicely with the Don Moyer club's "Smart Moves" program, which promotes abstinence and teaches kids how to avoid drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

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In light of the ending of federal prosecution for medical marijuana users and growers, the governor of Illinois could and should legalize the use of medical marijuana.

Not only would that allow use of the plant by people who need it for pain relief, but it would also answer the need for revenue for the state.

Gov. Quinn and state lawmakers could use the taxes collected from growers and users to help eliminate the deficit. It would be the same as when liquor was made legal in the 1920s, which helped the whole country heal from the Depression.

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WASHINGTON -- Last week, the Justice Department ordered its staff to back off prosecution of people who use marijuana for medical purposes in the 14 states in which such use is legal. The directive reopened a question that has been part of the debate on U.S. drug policy for decades.

To understand more about the drug's medical properties, we turned to Daniele Piomelli, who since 1998 has led a program, funded by the National Institutes of Health, to study the impact of marijuana and other psychoactive drugs on the brain. He is a professor of pharmacology and biological chemistry at the University of California at Irvine and director of the center for Drug Discovery and Development at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa.

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In 1939 when I was in fourth grade, I would bring a half-pint whiskey bottle to school filled with chocolate milk to have at lunch. My teacher, a ministerial student in our parochial school, showed me the liquor tax tag and told me it was against the law to reuse that bottle. My dad reassured me the teacher was wrong because no alcohol was in the bottle.

However, seven years earlier, even having whiskey in that bottle was illegal. But in 1933, the Prohibition experiment ended and alcohol was decriminalized. And now it seems that it may be time to decriminalize marijuana.

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Thank you for publishing columnist Steve Chapman's "From Obama, sanity on marijuana" (Commentary, Oct. 22).

What most people do not know is that cannabis has been shown to reduce the risk for certain cancers and shrink tumors, and evidence from numerous studies has shown that cannabis and its chemical compounds, cannabinoids, induce cell apoptosis, or programmed cell death.

Furthermore cannabis is frequently used in states that permit its medical use to treat the side effects of chemotherapy, and more and more research is revealing the anti-cancer properties of cannabis.

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