MEDICAL MARIJUANA INSANITY

MEDICAL MARIJUANA INSANITY

Congress will soon be voting on a heartless anti-medicinal marijuana resolution. House Resolution 372 declares that marijuana "should not be legalized for medicinal use." This extremist resolution further urges "the defeat of state initiatives which would seek to legalize marijuana for medicinal use."

If passed, this non-binding resolution would not create new law, but it would send the wrong message -- that our federal legislators support putting seriously ill people in prison for using medicinal marijuana.

Indeed, medicinal marijuana is already illegal under federal law: A patient convicted of possessing one joint faces up to one year in prison; a patient growing even one marijuana plant for personal, medical use faces up to five years in prison.

Patients should be allowed to use medicinal marijuana if their doctors approve. Furthermore, doctors should not be penalized for recommending such use.

Whether or not you support changing the medicinal marijuana laws, what ever happened to states' rights? The U.S. House should not go out of its way to dictate to the voters what their state laws should be. This arrogant, Washington-knows-best attitude must be defeated.

I urge all readers to contact their U.S. representative and ask him or her to vote "no" on House Resolution 372. Stop arresting patients!