Pubdate: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK) Copyright: 2004 Fairbanks Publishing Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.news-miner.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/764 Author: Jamesa Gordon Cited: Proposition 2 ( www.yeson2alaska.com/ ) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/states/ak/ (Alaska) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Loren+Leman (Loren Leman) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Scott+Burns YES ON MEASURE 2 To the editor: I am a medical cannabis patient. I have multiple sclerosis and have suffered from this for several years now. I have no legal access to my medicine, despite having a medical marijuana user's card and being registered with the proper authorities in Juneau, despite that registry interfering in my doctor/patient confidentiality. If I even had access to legal seeds or medicine, Loren Leman's gutting of the voter's initiative to allow my use of cannabis destroyed many of the common-sense protections I would've otherwise had. Lately the drug czar sent his deputy, Scott Burns, to Alaska to engage in electioneering regarding an Alaska initiative, Measure 2. Measure 2 would allow me safe legal access to my medicine. The drug czar's office has seen fit to again fill the media with dishonesty regarding the alleged harms of cannabis. The drug czar's office files no Alaska Public Offices Commission papers and was even given authority by the General Accounting Office last year to lie when Republican Ron Paul of Texas filed a complaint against them for using taxpayer money to use propaganda in the war on this plant. The credible evidence and peer-reviewed studies discount the drug czar's claims, but they're not funded to permit their science to be printed in the general media in the manner in which the drug czar's office is. As a result, the media prints untruths provided by the drug czar, and patients suffer. I'm voting yes on Measure 2 to end this nonsense and so that I can have access to my medicine and ease my suffering. Sincerely, Jamesa Gordon Fairbanks - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake