Sir, - Martin Cooke (October 13th) took issue with me about uses of cannabis. My motion, carried nem. con. at the recent Annual General Meeting of the Association of General Practitioners, was "That this association is of the opinion that cannabis and its products have not any unique medical use". He said that "international [Does he mean "foreign"?] research" refutes my statement that it had long been recognised that the use of cannabis led to addiction and stronger drugs, and that there was no evidence to support the belief that the use of one drug would inevitably lead to the use of any other drug. There is evidence that the use of cannabis does, in many cases, lead on to the use of moreharmful drugs. I did not use the word, "inevitably".
Martin Cooke suspects that I assume that the medical use of marijuana would require legalisation for "recreational" use. I thank him for his patronising mini-lecture about that. He went on to say that "marijuana has never caused a fatal response", and he purported to quote support from The Lancet. He did not say that the quotation had editorial approval. The inhalation of fumes from burning marijuana, or any other vegetable matter, is likely to do damage of kinds comparable with tobacco, which kills.
Martin Cooke stated that I said that it was a big lie that marijuana was useful in the treatment of certain diseases, but he carefully omitted my qualification, "which conventional medicine cannot deal with". - Yours, etc.,
From S. Ua Conchubhair
Uaran Mor, Gaillimh.