The debate around medical marijuana should move away from the lack of scientific studies and focus on experience.

I admit to formerly being a pot smoker. Some time back I quit smoking weed to focus on family and career. Unfortunately, a few months ago a doctor gave me a diagnosis no one wants to hear. I have cancer. I currently undergo both chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Surgery is in the future.

The first two weeks of chemotherapy went well with no side effects. As the third week progressed, however, I started experiencing stomach upset and nausea in the morning after taking the four chemotherapy pills. I waited until after breakfast of course, but that didn’t seem to affect the nausea. After enduring the discomfort for a week, which pretty much ruined my whole day, I obtained some marijuana.

Without sounding religious, the effect of smoking pot is like a miracle. It takes about 15 minutes after the chemotherapy for the nausea to begin. At that point I take one hit of weed. Within just a few minutes, I feel much better and, in fact, it makes the entire day go so much better as I am still attempting to work.

Whatever a person’s beliefs are concerning medical marijuana, I can say from first-hand experience the relief is dramatic. While I do not advocate illegal activity, if you suffer the effects of chemotherapy nausea, try smoking weed. It works.

Chris

Peoria area

It’s not the “tree huggers” who are unreasonable

In his August column, Roger Monroe ridicules “tree huggers” who are against the proposed apartments on riverfront parkland. He suggests they should be satisfied with the other parks in our area. If that is true, then why can’t the apartment proponents be satisfied with one of the many available non-park development locations in the city? How is it that park proponents who want riverfront parkland ARE NOT being reasonable, but people who want to locate apartments in the same location ARE?

Dave Grebner, Peoria Heights

Question the safety of aspartame

(Digestion of aspartame produces methanol and formaldehyde. Community Word, July 2015)

Methanol persists in the human blood stream with a half-life of three hours. We are the only creatures highly vulnerable to it being made into formaldehyde right inside the cells of 20 tissues by ADH1 enzyme, in adults and in the fetus.

Formaldehyde sticks to and glues together DNA, RNA, and proteins to make durable messes. The result is random harm such as scattered inflamed spots leading to scores of different modern “diseases of civilization.”

This is all a surprise to scientists, who never dreamed that a simple common chemical could be toxic only to humans and in low daily doses lead to scores of different chronic diseases over years of exposure.

Prof. Woodrow C. Monte, Food Science and Nutrition, Arizona State University, retired 2004, explains all this in a free online archive of 782 full text research references at WhileScienceSleeps.com.

At age 73, I’m just his water boy, with many full pails at rmforall.blogspot.com.

“As a matter of course, every soul citizen of Earth has a priority to quickly find and positively share evidence for healthy and safe food, drink, environment and society” within the fellowship of service.

Rich Murray

Imperial Beach, CA