According to the Dec. 22 story in The Columbian, "State considers adding ADD, OCD to medical pot list," the state of Washington is considering legalizing the use of marijuana for anyone who has a medical problem of any kind. For instance, Attention Deficit Disorder or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder would qualify. Other unrelated diseases, such as a "social disorder" and "intractable pain," also would make the grade.

Now, my problem is that I have OCHD (Obsessive Compulsive Hunting Disorder). I love to hunt wild game animals. Someone recently diagnosed me as being an elkaholic, with no hope of recovery. Faced with this dire addiction, I wonder if I might qualify for medical marijuana. And since they are looking for scientific reasons for adopting its use, I will gladly submit to further study of my condition. Until then, I guess I'll just have to go on feeding my compulsion by hunting big game. If, however, I am refused on the basis that OCHD doesn't qualify me, perhaps I could add that I also have a hangnail. Anything to get access to this addictive gateway drug. Please, somebody help me.

Elwood Bonner

Vancouver

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Appeal: Attorneys for Dispensary Denied License Say Public Safety Hazard Not Proven

Lawyers for Lacey Cross -- a store on Pacific Avenue that sells medicinal marijuana -- have filed an appeal in Thurston County Superior Court seeking to overturn the city's denial of its business license application.

The land-use petition filed by Seattle attorneys Charles Moure and Hilary Bricken states that the Lacey City Council erred during a Dec. 1 hearing when it upheld a land-use hearing examiner's denial of Lacey Cross's application for a business license.

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Since the federal government and Congress are unwilling to heed the wishes of the electorate when it comes to regulating the sale and distribution of marijuana for medicinal purposes, it's up to the states to engage in pressure politics.

States are known as the laboratories of democracy, so it's appropriate that they would also be the places to plant the seeds of sensible change.

Sixteen states have adopted medical marijuana laws, despite the fact that federal law considers pot to be more dangerous than prescription pain pills, and on par with heroin. Nearly 15,000 people died from pain pill overdoses in 2008, but nobody is calling for OxyContin and the like to be pulled from pharmacy shelves. Lethal overdoses of marijuana are unheard of, but pharmacies aren't allowed to stock pot under federal law.

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Regarding your Dec. 13 editorial, not only should medical marijuana be made available to patients in need, but also adult recreational use should be legally regulated.

Drug policies modeled after alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth-oriented black market. Illegal drug dealers don't ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences.

Throwing more money at the problem is no solution. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

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Stevens County activists dressed in prison stripes recently were tossed out of Gonzaga University's Cataldo Hall where Rick Steves, the travel writer and TV show host, was delivering a speech.

Members of the November Coalition, a foundation dedicated to ending the drug war, had no gripe with Steves' hotel recommendations, but rather with his public support for an initiative to reform Washington's marijuana laws that the protesters say falls short of decriminalization.

"New Approach Washington" is the name of the well-financed effort to bring before the Legislature early next year Initiative 502, which would treat marijuana like a public health issue rather than a crime.

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The Seattle Times Editorial Board Expresses Its Support for Medical Marijuana and for the Legalization, Regulation and Taxation Of Marijuana Generally, and Hopes for Change in 2012.

LAST February this page argued that prohibiting marijuana was causing far more harm than good, and that Washington should legalize it for adult use. We hold this view still, and have strong hopes for progress in 2012.

A year ago, dispensaries were open across the state providing edible and smokable cannabis to bona fide patients. For the most part these shops were orderly and peaceful, though whether they were legal was doubtful.

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Guest Columnist Myra J. Christopher Argues That Policymakers Must Move Beyond the Rhetoric of the "Opioid Wars" to Find Solutions to Managing Chronic Pain. Otherwise, Pain Patients in Washington and Elsewhere Will Continue to Be Collateral Damage.

THERE is a Chinese saying that we are prone to "kiss dragons and stomp gnats." When we have a big problem that we have no idea how to solve, we fixate on a lesser problem. The abuse of prescription medications, particularly by our teens and young adults, is a big problem, but not one caused by people who rely on medications to manage their pain. People living with chronic pain in Washington state have become collateral damage in an ongoing battle that has been characterized as the "opioid wars."

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MARYSVILLE - A trio of personal testimonies as to the benefits of medical marijuana was met with interest by the Marysville City Council on Dec. 12, as two citizens of Marysville and one from Lake Stevens urged them to allow the city's moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries to expire on Jan. 5 of next year.

Nonetheless, the Council voted unanimously to extend the moratorium into June of 2012, after Marysville City Attorney Grant Weed warned of potential confusion in interpreting the existing laws regulating medical marijuana, as well as conflicts that could arise between municipal, state and federal laws on the subject.

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Marijuana Use By Hepatitis C Patients Could Be Harmful

It is interesting to see two articles the same day about marijuana. Columnist Neal Peirce wonders why President Obama has backed away from the advocacy of pro-marijuana candidate Obama ["Obama's puzzling silence on pot," Opinion, Dec. 18] and LA Times reporter Anna Gorman highlights the plight of a hepatitis C patient who was rejected for a liver transplant as his condition advanced into liver cancer. ["Medical marijuana adds crimp to liver transplant eligibility," seattletimes.com, Dec. 17.] The rejection was based on his use of approved medical marijuana.

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The Youth Vote Helped Propel Barack Obama to the Presidency, but That Enthusiasm Has Declined Sharply, Writes Neal Peirce. One Issue Might Reignite Youthful Enthusiasm: Marijuana - Partly Its Medical Use, but Especially Americans' Right to Recreational Use Free of Potential Arrest.

WASHINGTON - "Dance with the One that Brought You" is the title of a well-known song. But the Urban Dictionary offers a deeper meaning: "The principle that someone should pay proper fealty to those who have gone out of their way to look after them."

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I really think the school lockdown and K-9 sweeps at our Northshore School District junior highs in October was overkill. Are we trying to indoctrinate our students to accept having their civil liberties tested, if not violated (I know that there have been conflicting rulings in the courts regarding "suspicion-less sniffs")? I must say as a professional who has worked at First Security Bank, IBM, Washington Mutual, JP Morgan Chase and Microsoft, we have NEVER had our areas swept by K-9 units (and this would be allowed since these are private, not government institutions, as are the public schools).

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Regarding the editorial, "Industrial hemp: A better way to make paper": The United States is one of the few countries in the world that denies farmers the right to grow industrial hemp. Apparently drug war bureaucrats can't tell the difference between a tall hemp stalk and a squat marijuana bush. Prior to passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, few Americans had even heard of marijuana, despite widespread cultivation of industrial hemp.

The first anti-marijuana laws were a racist reaction to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s. White Americans did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched federal bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda. Decades later, marijuana use is now mainstream.

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Major kudos for your outstanding editorial: "Federal reclassification of marijuana a smart move" (Dec. 11). Is there any legitimate reason that a natural herb that has never killed anybody should be classified the same as heroin? I think not.

I know from personal experience that marijuana is a substitute for potentially deadly painkillers like Vicodin and is also a substitute for alcohol. The pharmaceutical industry knows this and so does the alcohol industry. And this is probably why marijuana remains a criminalized substance.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

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It's particularly frustrating that the sale of the Kimberly-Clark paper plant apparently fell through over environmental clean-up concerns, after the company spent $300 million since 1995 upgrading its wastewater and pulp-making systems. Now, the company plans to raze the waterfront site and sell it for development.

The Kimberly-Clark website has pages and pages devoted to explaining the company's commitment to sustainable business practices worldwide. The company states, "The wood pulp we use is mainly sourced from forests in the U.S., Canada and Brazil. We buy more than 90 percent of our virgin fiber from external suppliers, and make the rest from purchased wood chips in our two pulp mills in Everett, Washington, U.S., and Tantanoola, Australia."

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Seattle's Effort to Bring Medical-Marijuana Dispensaries Under the Wing of City Ordinance Was Challenged As Unconstitutional Wednesday on Grounds It Would Require an Admission of Illegal Activity.

A lawsuit, filed by longtime marijuana defense attorney Douglas Hiatt, accuses the city of legal hypocrisy by requiring dispensary owners to get licenses, pay taxes and abide by zoning laws while the city is also enforcing drug-nuisance laws.

The lawsuit exposes intrafamily fighting among marijuana-legalization advocates Seattle City attorney Pete Holmes, whose office championed the ordinance, and Hiatt, who views most regulation as de-facto admission that operating a marijuana dispensary is a federal crime.

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Bravo to the City Council, Planning Department, and medical marijuana advocates and patients for crafting a sensible solution to the debate about collective gardens in the city.

The ordinance adopted Dec. 5 reflects compassion and understanding on the part of city leaders. Moreover, the legislation adds commonsense regulations to collective gardens. Limiting the operations near schools, daycare centers and other public spaces is smart.

The decision is also a courageous act. Even as other Washington cities and the federal government fail to recognize marijuana's medical merits, local leaders made a reaffirming stand for patients' rights. In Washington, medical marijuana patients suffer from the most debilitating and painful conditions - AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and more.

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Gov. Chris Gregoire has joined forces with the governor of Rhode Island in asking the federal government to change its views on marijuana.

Washington and Rhode Island have passed laws that allow marijuana use for medical reasons, decriminalizing the drug in those instances.

But federal law doesn't see pot as a useful medical tool, instead lumping it in the same category as heroin and LSD. Under federal law, marijuana is a Schedule 1 controlled substance and has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States."

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Cheaper Than Crime, Health Care

Chances are good that each reader of this letter has a relative or friend addicted to alcohol or drugs. Addiction often leads to unemployment and decimation of personal resources, so publicly funded treatment is needed by many.

Gov. Chris Gregoire's Nov. 21 budget proposal eliminates $28.4 million from chemical dependency services. This is penny-wise and pound-foolish; for every dollar spent on treatment there are at least seven saved. Treatment reduces crime, health-care costs and child mistreatment, and increases employment and job productivity.

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It was meant to curb rising overdose deaths. But Washington's new pain-management law makes it so difficult for doctors to treat pain that many have stopped trying, leaving legions of patients without life-enabling medication.

Charles Passantino stared at his doctor in disbelief.

A 64-year-old patient with a crippling liver disease, Passantino had received treatment for eight years for chronic pain. He took small doses of oxycodone, a generic painkiller, to free his muscles from stiffness and swelling.

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YAKIMA, Wash. - Collective gardens and dispensaries for medical marijuana would be illegal under a proposed ordinance being considered by the Yakima Planning Commission.

The commission will hold a public hearing on the matter at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall.

The City Council will hold its own hearing on the commission's recommendation on Jan. 17, just before a six-month moratorium on medical marijuana gardens expires.

The commission is expected to recommend that the city ban collective gardens or dispensaries as long as they violate state or federal law.

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