Politics and Ruling on Medical Marijuana

Re “Top Court Says No to Medical Marijuana Use,” May 15: Within the past five years, four of my friends and relatives have been stricken with breast cancer. Two of them died. All suffered through painful courses of chemotherapy. In some cases, marijuana was the only medicine that helped them to keep food down--at all--for weeks on end. What would the government tell those women who suffered and died? That they were being protected from a life of addiction? Preposterous!

Cancer is striking a huge number of American citizens, and for our government to turn a cold shoulder on them is incredibly cruel. In a democracy, where the survivors and their families have the right to vote, such insensitivity is also stupid. So much for a “kinder and gentler” America.

Beth Black

Glendale

First they deliver an illegitimate presidency under the masquerade of sparing us poor, hapless citizens the pain of a constitutional crisis. Now, masquerading under the letter of the law, they have returned to their self-appointed high moral ground to inflict pain on those who suffer the horrors of extraordinary physical pain. On the road to becoming constitutional scholars, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and William H. Rehnquist apparently didn’t learn how to become true caring human beings, the essential quality of a justice who is just and fair. For this their legacy will be cast in shame.

Maurice J. Flantzman

Los Angeles

So much for states’ rights.

Ben Boorman

Compton

This is too ironic. My late father was a medical doctor. His federal license to dispense medicine was titled “Permit to Possess and Distribute Opium, Marijuana and Coca Leaves” at a time when marijuana had no recognized medical use. Now that marijuana’s medical uses are being proven by science, doctors can no longer prescribe it. The founders of our country must be spinning in their graves while watching their experiment in democracy die under a tyranny of stupidity and double talk.

Peter M. Linden Sr.

Alhambra

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” The people voted for medical use of marijuana. The conservative Supreme Court dictated against the people. And we all know very well that they, or their circles of family and friends, will use it if it curbs their pains. And so we continue the hypocritical double standard of government versus the people.

Flo Ginsburg

Santa Monica