A Critical Need for Medical Marijuana; A Rash Approach to Mosquito Control; Haunted by Children Who Won’t Return (5 Letters)

A Critical Need For Medical Marijuana

Skip to next paragraph Related Op-Ed Contributor: Crackpot Legislation (June 17, 2007) Pest Control: Mosquito Arrives, Its Enemies Divided (June 17, 2007) Generations: A Father Never Stops Counting (June 17, 2007)

To the Editor:

I read Henry I. Miller's denunciation of New York's medical marijuana legislation ("Crackpot Legislation," Op-Ed, June 17) with shock and dismay. I have some personal experience with this issue.

Marijuana pulled me back from the brink when AIDS-related wasting endangered my life and conventional drugs failed. It still does better than legal drugs at relieving the nausea and appetite loss caused by the harsh anti-H.I.V. drugs I must take.

Dr. Miller holds out the promise of future research into marijuana-based medicines. Apparently he feels that I would be healthier going to jail rather than using medical marijuana to maintain my appetite and weight.

I - and my doctor - disagree.

John Sheridan New York

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To the Editor:

In "Crackpot Legislation," Henry I. Miller proposes unrealistic dangers in the use of medical marijuana. He worries about "fungi, bacteria, pesticides, heavy metals and other substances." If citizens grow their own marijuana in limited quantities, these risks are eliminated. He also worries about quality control: if people grow their own, they quickly learn what to expect from their domestic product.

While he acknowledges that marijuana may have some medicinal purposes, he would have patients wait for F.D.A.-approved clinical trials of Sativex, a liquid marijuana derivative. If Sativex is approved, as it has been in Canada, it will still have a major drawback: it will be expensive.

Marijuana, if legal, costs almost nothing to grow. Obviously the drug companies will prefer Sativex.

In 1944, after careful scientific study, a commission appointed by New York City's mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia, concluded that marijuana posed few, if any, risks. Local and state governments continue to provide a more realistic view than the hysteria that has often come from the federal government.

Arthur Hohmuth Princeton, N.J.

The writer is a professor of psychology at the College of New Jersey.

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To the Editor:

Henry I. Miller suggests that advocates for medical marijuana have a "real agenda" to legalize it as a recreational drug.

Our son, Sean, never used marijuana until his physicians recommended it, since the legal, F.D.A.-approved drugs were not effective in relieving the effects of his cancer and the chemotherapy he was receiving. He did, and it allowed him to live for another 18 months without the constant pain and nausea from his condition.

For Sean, marijuana was not for recreation; it was for survival.

Don McGrath Gerry McGrath Robbinsville, N.J.

A Rash Approach to Mosquito Control

To the Editor:

Suffolk County's program to protect its residents from West Nile virus infection, by controlling populations of salt-marsh-breeding mosquitoes ("Mosquito Arrives, Its Enemies Divided," June 17), makes no sense.

Most residents by now have already been bitten by an infected mosquito, and have exhibited few, if any, symptoms. Since the West Nile organism is stable, this "free vaccination" immunized them for life. Further, for every few thousand infected fresh-water-breeding mosquitoes found in Suffolk, only one infected salt-marsh mosquito is discovered.

The techniques employed by the county to control salt-marsh mosquitoes over the past several decades have all been counterproductive. Destroying salt-marsh-mosquito habitat by digging ditches, ponds and channels also destroyed the habitat of indigenous mosquito predators.

Also counterproductive were the DDT, neurotoxins and larvicides sprayed on the marsh. The stronger mosquitoes and larvae survived to evolve chemical-resistant strains, while the resulting chemical concentration in their predators was lethal.

Bob McAlevy Hampton Bays

Haunted by Children Who Won't Return

To the Editor:

I just read "A Father Never Stops Counting," by Steve Lewis (Generations, June 17). No other article in The Times has ever made me lay my head down on the table and cry.

Partly it was because I know when my children leave home, I will feel the same way he does (mine are only 1 and 3). But mostly it was because of the numbers he cites at the end: 3,506 dead American soldiers, all of them someone's son or daughter. Not to mention thousands of dead Iraqis - also someone's son or daughter.

Tell me whom to vote for to stop the dying.

Andrea Bates Wilton, Conn.