Northwest Voices | Letters to the Editor
Welcome to The Seattle Times' online letters to the editor, a sampling of readers' opinions. Join the conversation by commenting on these letters or send your own letter of up to 200 words opinion@seattletimes.com.
Medical marijuana use complicates liver transplants
Posted by Letters editor
Marijuana use by hepatitis C patients could be harmful
It is interesting to see two articles the same day about marijuana. Columnist Neal Peirce wonders why President Obama has backed away from the advocacy of pro-marijuana candidate Obama [“Obama’s puzzling silence on pot,” Opinion, Dec. 18] and LA Times reporter Anna Gorman highlights the plight of a hepatitis C patient who was rejected for a liver transplant as his condition advanced into liver cancer. [“Medical marijuana adds crimp to liver transplant eligibility,” seattletimes.com, Dec. 17.] The rejection was based on his use of approved medical marijuana.
It might help everyone to know that evidence seems to show that hepatitis C patients progress three to four times as rapidly to cirrhosis, and then to liver cancer, when smoking marijuana. This is a deadly trap set by the use of medical or nonmedical marijuana for chronic pain of hepatitis C.
— Gerald N. Yorioka, M.D., Mill Creek
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