I am a 75-year-old, terminally ill cancer patient on a hospice program
at Saddleback hospital. (By the way,these people at Saddleback should
be designated as national treasures.)

One of the best drugs with the fewest side-effects for cancer patients
is marijuana. Marijuana reduces the extreme nausea and retching that
often accompanies terminal cancer.

It also improves the lack of appetite. In short, it lets cancer
patients live longer and more comfortably.

Doctors, nurses, cancer patients and their families know this.
Legislators apparently do not.

Our legislators have made it illegal for doctors to prescribe this
drug although it has been consistently shown to be one of the best
treatments available.

They are meddling in medical science to the detriment of my health and
the health and well being of millions of cancer patients.

When a member of your family is in the end stages of cancer, finding
relief and comfort for them goes beyond the capricious legal system.

Yet, it is infinitely sad that one's choice in this matter is to
either break the law or, for some of us, terminate our own life.

Doctors can prescribe heavy duty narcotics like morphine, codeine and
the like. For many of us, these drugs leave us comatose, unable to
function. Marijuana does not have this type of side-effect.

Legislators have to make the laws, but where cancer is concerned only
those legislators with cancer should be permitted to make those laws.

Jerome Man