Kern County's plan to ban store-front medical marijuana collectives is not right.

Twenty-seven years ago last week, my 27-year-old husband died of Burkitt's lymphoma; he was the fifth adult in the United States to be diagnosed with that type of cancer. He went very quickly over the course of eight months and was in terrible pain, on morphine, Vicodin and anything else the doctors at UCLA could give him.

Finally, one of the doctors pulled me aside and told me, off the record, to get him some marijuana for his pain. I thought the doctor was nuts, but I finally found someone that got me the good stuff. That was the only thing that improved my husband's quality of life at the end. He was able to play with our three small daughters without the horrible pain and without telling me every day that he wished his time would just come so the pain would end.

I find it sad that nonmedical people can take this away from patients that truly need it.

Bakersfield

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