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 is based on common sense: "Smoking causes lung cancer and other deadly
 diseases. Americans take their medicines in pills, solufions_ sprays, shots,
 drops, creams and somedraes in suppositories, but never by smoldng." I2
 If this were a contest to find the most inane statement, that might be the
 one: It's hard to imagine a cancer patient who would rather endure three
 days of vomidng than toke on a joint that might cause cancer -- if he
 smoked 20 joints a day for several years.
 For several years in the middle of the above legal abomination, the
 DEA permitted a certain number of people, including AIDS patients as weII
 as those afflicted with diseases addressed above, to obtain government-grown
 and -supplied marijuana cigarettes. The program was recently discontinued,
 however.
 Under federal law, then, I am permitted to have: (and I do have)
 horribly destructives addictive drugs such as morphine: and it, synthetics and
 derivitaves, including Dilaudid and Percocet (oxycodone). These drugs
 control pain, but leave me unable to fimcfion as a thinking, reasoning person.
 To obtain a benign plant leaf that will stop debilita6ng vorrfifing, however, I
 must comrr_t a crimeo13
 STATE LEGAL HISTORY
 A. STATUTORY
 In 1979, the Legislature passed the ComrolIed Substances Therapeutic
 Research Act, 14 stating that "The legislature finds that recent research has
 shown that the use of marijuana may alleviate the nausea and ill effects of
 cancer chemotherapy and°..glaucoma. The legistatm-e further finds that
 there is a need for further research and experimentation regarding the use of
 marijuana under s_ctly controlled circumstances."
 _2 Final Rule (see foomote 2, _ page 30
 _3 To add fuel to the sense of falling through the looking glass in 1992, fi_llowing the final rule, the price
 of dronabinol/mari_ol nearly quadrupled. I pMd $33.70 for 30 tabled o_ Ju_y IZ 1991. On February 4,
 1992, I paid $124_50 for the same number of tablets. Looked at another way, the cost went from 84 cents
 per tablet to $3.I 1 eacch_ or 3.7 times the original cost.
 14 RCW 69,51