Letter: Sides Split Over Medical Marijuana Bill
Bruce Mirken, Marijuana Policy Project
June 4, 2009
The Alton Telegraph (Alton, IL)
Madison County Sheriff Robert Hertz inadvertently summed up the bankruptcy of medical marijuana opponents' arguments ("Sides split over medical marijuana bill," 5/31).
Hertz says, "I'm dead against it. What's next? Cocaine? Meth?" Could he be unaware that both cocaine and methamphetamine are legal medicines today?
That's right: Coke and meth are classed in Schedule II of the federal Controlled Substances Act, allowing medical use. Cocaine is used mainly in liquid form as a local anesthetic, while methamphetamine pills are available by prescription. And no one seriously believes that medical use has the slightest impact on abuse of either drug.
But right now, our laws treat coke and meth as less dangerous than marijuana. Given marijuana's well-documented medical efficacy and safety (fatal overdoses are literally impossible), that is simply insane. | 
