Write a letter to the editor
Writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper can be a great way to foster discussion about protecting seriously ill patients who find that marijuana provides relief. While we have provided a list of talking points, we encourage you to write your own letter.
Tips for writing effective letters to the editor:
* Try to convince the reader in as few words as possible — not more than 200 words, preferably fewer. The shorter and more powerful a letter is, the more likely it is to be published.
* Be sure to include your contact information — including your phone number, city, and ZIP code — so that the editors can verify that you are the author of the letter. Many newspapers will not publish letters that cannot be verified.
* If possible, make your letter more timely by mentioning a recent news event in your area or an article in that newspaper. Letters referring to an article the paper has recently published are the most likely to run.
* If sending your letter by e-mail, do not send it as an attachment. Because attachments can carry computer viruses, many newspapers have programs that block all e-mails that have attachments. Paste the text into the e-mail itself.
Some points you can mention in your letters:
• Numerous prestigious medical organizations support legal medical marijuana access for the seriously ill, including the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
• This is not a partisan issue; it is a compassion issue.
• Many otherwise-illegal substances, such as cocaine and morphine, can legally be prescribed by doctors. The same should be true for marijuana.
• Many of the legal alternatives proposed by opponents of medical marijuana are too expensive, too addictive, and have too many side effects to be good medicine for all patients.
• Chemotherapy patients who are too nauseated to eat or swallow a pill should not have to fear arrest if they — and their doctors — find that smoking marijuana is the most effective means of treating their symptoms.
• Ultimately, the decision of what medicine is best for an illness should be left up to the patient and the doctor, not to the government.
• When they have their doctors' approval, patients should be able to use medical marijuana. They should also be able to rely on a safe supply of marijuana, without having to resort to the dangerous criminal market.
• Our state government should use tax money to prosecute violent crime, not punish medical marijuana users.
• For all of these reasons, Massachusetts' legislature should enact laws that protect patients and allow them to safely access the medicine that relieves their suffering.