Sample Letters to the Editor

[Jimbo]

from the Media Awareness Project

November13, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle

Editor -- Joseph Perkins' chortling column about the defeat of marijuana reform around the country is a hard one for reformers to take ("Voters see pot reform for what it is," Nov. 11). He accuses us of being well-funded while we sweep against the tide of a $20 billion-plus federal budget and the clout it brings in.

More important, he fails to explain why access to marijuana without risk of criminal persecution for those who need it, medically or recreationally, is an evil thing. He can't do that without mounting a pulpit.
-Gerald M. Sutliff,
Oakland

November 13, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle

Editor -- In his Nov. 11 column, Joseph Perkins wrote, "There is no hard scientific evidence proving the efficacy of medical marijuana."

Nor is there hard scientific evidence that marijuana use leads to long-term health problems. It is clearly less dangerous than cig**ettes or al**hol.

Marijuana has always been a cultural issue. It is illegal because most of the voters dislike the kind of people who enjoy using it.

- John Engelman
Walnut Creek

Aug18 2002
Oshawa This Week (Canada)

Contrary to what Durham Regional Police Chief Kevin McAlpine believes, there have been numerous studies. A prominent U.S. researcher, John P. Morgan of City University of New York Medical School, told the Senate Committee smoking marijuana does not seem to cause lung cancer, emphysema or cause birth anomalies in fetuses.

-Wayne Phillips,
Hamilton, Ont.

What If You're In Pain?
Aug 21 2002
Santa Cruz Sentinel

To those who oppose the use of medical marijuana, does that include friends, perhaps even themselves, or just faceless strangers whose pain they cannot see?

-Dorothy Boates,
Santa Cruz

Clubbing Compassion
Aug 29, 2002
NOW Magazine (Canada)

Guns drawn and bulletproof vests to raid a medical marijuana club? Who are the real criminals?

- Kevin Allan,
Vancouver

Defying The Law
Sept 20, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle

Editor -- Daniel J. Loran (Letters, "New Confederacy," Sept. 18), in his shock upon learning that Santa Cruz officials distributed medical marijuana in violation of federal law, argues that "defiance [of laws], for whatever reasons, is not acceptable."

I guess that also holds true for those "criminal subversives" who held the Boston Tea Party? Mahatma Gandhi? Rosa Parks?

-Rob Randhava,
Washington

Double Standard?
Aug 5, 2002
Ledger-Enquirer (GA)

Noelle Bush was found with two grams of cr*ck co**ine, which carries a five-year mandatory sentence.

Mr. appointed president, I'll bet she won't go to prison. But you'll go after the sick and dying in California who need medical marijuana, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Where's the justice in that?

-Buster Jones,
Columbus

June 19, 2002
The Calgary Sun (CN AB)

In a recent letter, Ted Sali wrote: "People are losing sight of who is backing the marijuana cause. It's a bunch of dope-heads." Much to Sali's chagrin, people are gaining sight of who opposes medical marijuana. It's a bunch of bigots.

-Danny Terwey
Calgary

Pogrom Against Cannabis
Nov 05, 2002
Sacramento Bee (CA)

Unlike the letter writer who works in narcotics enforcement, our family knows the real truth of pain, suffering and even death when it comes to medical marijuana use.

Our beloved aunt used it to relieve the pain, anxiety and nausea in her courageous fight against breast cancer through two radical surgeries, chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and several radiation treatments.

She faced leaving a young son without a mother. She always strongly stated that the medical marijuana was the most effective drug she used to alleviate the suffering she endured.

Even if medical marijuana users are not terminally ill, who are those to judge their illness or pain?
-Susie E. Simanek,
Sacramento

Medical Marijuana Was Effective For Her
Los Angeles Times - Nov 04, 2002

I was so pleased to read that doctors can no longer be accountable for suggesting marijuana use to patients when needed ("Medical Pot Use Given a Boost," Oct. 30). I just finished a year of treatments for breast cancer. While in chemotherapy treatment, nothing could control my severe nausea and vomiting. I was prescribed the so-called best prescription drug: Zofran. I even had it in IV form. After being so weak from vomiting that I didn't have enough strength to crawl back into bed, I tried marijuana following my fourth chemo treatment.
The symptoms were gone instantly.

The marijuana was the only thing that kept me symptom-free. It was a miracle drug for me. I don't condone drug use, but feel that medical marijuana is better than the very expensive and synthetic alternatives in many medical cases.
-Allyson Santucci,
Palm Desert

California Waging Misguided War On Pot
Dec 22, 2001
San Jose Mercury News (CA)

SONYA Barna's ideas about implementing and defending the Compassionate Use Act are retroactive to the Dan Lungren days in California. She shows how desperately law enforcement needs to be educated about medical marijuana and the laws of California.


Barna thinks she's being compassionate by conceding that one plant "won't hurt anybody'' if someone is dying of cancer. She ignores that a dying patient has no way of tending a plant that requires habitual tending, or that some patients may need to consume more marijuana than just one plant will yield, which is why patients usually have to buy their cannabis.

Carrying on marijuana eradication programs like CAMP undermines the availability of medical-grade cannabis, drives up the price of what is left after raids, terrorizes patients, and wastes precious taxpayers' dollars. It's time to shift our law-enforcement priorities to stopping terror, not implementing it.

-Ray Carlson,
Redwood City

These letters are from the archives of the Media Awareness Project -
You can also find useful resources at Common Sense for Drug Policy -

Remember, every letter counts. They don.t have to be perfect. They just have to be written and mailed.

Good luck!
ASA : Sample Letters to the Editor