[Courtesy of Marijuana Policy Project] 

Dear friends:

Timothy Garon's face and arms are hauntingly skeletal, but the fluid building up in his abdomen makes the 56-year-old musician look eight months pregnant. His liver, ravaged by hepatitis C, is failing. Without a new one, his doctors tell him, he will be dead in days.

But Garon's been refused a spot on the transplant list, largely because he has used marijuana, even though it was legally approved for medical reasons.
— Associated Press, April 26, 2008

If federal law allowed marijuana to be treated like a medicine and not a drug of abuse, Timothy Garon wouldn't be about to die. (Because donated organs are scare, hospitals use selection standards that include drug use — even if that drug is medical marijuana that was recommended by the patient's doctor and legal under state law.)

When we say that the federal government's marijuana policies actually kill people, it's no exaggeration. This is a wrenchingly outrageous example of federal marijuana laws being responsible for killing a patient ... for no other reason than that he followed the advice of his doctor and used medical marijuana, as permitted by Washington state, where he lives.

Would you take one minute to ask your member of Congress to put a stop to this cruelty? MPP's online action center makes it simple; just enter your name and address and we'll do the rest.

You can also watch news coverage of this awful story here and here.

Our thoughts are with Timothy Garon and others like him — but thoughts are not enough. Won't you please insist that Congress change federal law now?

Thank you,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

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