Message-ID: <092302Z10041994@anon.penet.fi>
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,alt.hemp
From: an88445@anon.penet.fi
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 1994 09:19:16 UTC
Subject:      Medicinal Marijuana Has Many Drawbacks


Reprinted from New York Times, Friday April 8, 1994, pA26

To the Editor:
     Like the majority of other addictions specialists, I take exception
to Dr. Lester Grinspoon's 20 year crusade to advocate the legal and medicinal
use of marijuana (letter, March 25).  Smoking marijuana has no legitimate
place in the treatment of nausea induced by chemotherapy.
     It has a limited anti-nausea effect, better medications are available,
and the depressive effect of marijuana on the compromised immune system
in AIDS or cancer patients make it counterindicated.  Why would anyone
want to smoke marijuana, which contains more than 60 cannabinoids and 360
other toxic chemical compunds (including heavy amounts of cancer-producing
substances such as benzanthracene, benzopyrene and vinyl chloride), and
has negative long-term cardiovascular, respiratory and other effects?
     Let's not mislead the public and cancer patients, who surely
suffer enough.

          Nicholas A Pace, M.D.
          Vice Chairman, American Council for Drug Education
          New York, March 31, 1994

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