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Medical Marijuana
Guidlines
PLEASE RE-TYPE (or copy in your text editor and email or fax)
THE FOLLOWING 'LETTER-TO-THE-EDITOR' AND MAIL IT TO YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER AS SOON
AS POSSIBLE:
[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR ADDRESS]
[YOUR TELEPHONE #] (?)
To the editor,
Seriously ill people who need to use medical marijuana have once again been
betrayed by the federal government. On December 1, the Clinton administration
implemented its new medical marijuana research guidelines, which are still far
too cumbersome. The guidelines also explicitly reject the Institute of
Medicine's recent recommendation to open a federal compassionate- use program to
give individual patients immediate legal access to medical marijuana. The
administration claims that there is no longer a need to change state laws
because the federal research and approval process is wide open for medical
marijuana. That's not true: The new guidelines still place a much greater burden
on medical marijuana researchers than on drug companies that develop and study
newly synthesized pharmaceuticals. Presently, the only hope for protecting
medical marijuana users from the threat of prison is to remove criminal
penalties in the states. A statement criticizing the new HHS guidelines was
signed by Susan Sarandon, Richard Pryor, scientist Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.,
former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, best-selling natural health author
Andrew Weil, M.D., 'National Review'- senior editor Richard Brookhiser, AIDS
Action Council, New York State Nurses Association, National Black Police
Association, Reagan administration official Lyn Nofziger, and hundreds of other
patients, doctors, medical organizations, celebrities, and concerned citizens.
When will the federal government finally listen?
Signed,
[YOUR NAME]
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