Web: Letter of the Week

[Binky]

LETTER OF THE WEEK

Don't Give Up The Diabetes Fight

By Jerry Epstein

To the Editor:

Your article about the rising costs of diabetes serves to highlight our insane policy against the medical use of marijuana.

Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem just reported an experiment with marijuana cannabinoids that significantly reduced the prevalence of Type 1 diabetes in mice from an incidence of 86 percent in non-treated controls to an incidence of only 30 percent.

Meanwhile, even powerful figures like Senators John Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, working with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on behalf of would-be researchers, cannot break through the barriers to research thrown up by the federal government.

The witch hunt on marijuana has endured for years; we got past the Salem witch trials a lot faster.

Jerry Epstein, Houston,

The writer is a board member, Drug Policy Forum of Texas.

Pubdate - Sun, 21 May 2006

Source - New York Times ( NY )

Author - Jerry Epstein

Webpage: http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2006/ds06.n450.html#sec5

[Elysium]

Do you think he's saying that cannabinoids may prevent diabetes or control it's symptoms? (my nephew has type 1)