Pharmaceutical companies are reinventing the wheel when they try to synthetize the medicinal benefits of a natural plant with very little success and possible toxic and addictive side effects that can damage internal organs or other horrible side effects.

Marinol takes nearly an hour or more until you feel its effects, and marijuana is natural, nontoxic, and it acts in a minute or less. In many cases, fast relief offered by the proper varieties of marijuana can save lives.

Marinol makes you feel like a zombie (not marijuana), and it does not help as many conditions compared with different varieties of marijuana. It's normal for a pharmacist such as Stan Gierhan to freak out when his pill sales go down or to invent any reasons to sell more pills. Believe me, pharmaceutical companies will do their best to keep this natural and nontoxic plant prohibited and illegal.

Marc Paquette, Hawkesbury, Ontario, Canada. Paquette has been a legal medical marijuana patient since March 2000. Date: 5/17/2007