The March 26 editorial cartoon by Jane Mattimoe about the measure to legalize and tax cannabis in California, evokes the tired stereotype that medicinal use is nothing more than a smokescreen for "recreational" pot smoking. "We're not even going to pretend it's medicinal," she has California say.
Two points should be made about this: First, we cannot assume a neat distinction between medicinal and recreational uses, since an unknown proportion of "recreational" cannabis users may be self-medicating with it.
Second, Mattimoe does not need to further the lie that cannabis has no therapeutic utility: The federal government already spends millions of our tax dollars trying to demonize this plant, and denies its therapeutic value while obstructing research not aimed at demonstrating its harms.
The cartoon implies hypocrisy on the part of cannabis activists, but its wit would be better directed at the federal government's destructive and failed war on drugs.\n\nMatthew Meyer\nGSAS
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