Although perhaps I should be, to be clear, I am not a medical marijuana user and so have no vested interest in the survival of the dispensaries in Federal Way. Nevertheless, Police Chief Brian Wilson has managed to insult and degrade both me and people like me in one long sentence that borders on discrimination.

Chief Wilson is quoted as saying, with regard to the dispensaries: “If you just hang out in front of one of these locations in Federal Way, watch what’s going on. They don’t look like cancer patients.”

I hear such ignorant and painful comments all the time. I doubt, that by looking, the chief could see the long scar marking the site of a brain injury that brings unrelenting chronic pain to my life. I doubt that the chief could see that I’m also a cancer survivor. So far. I doubt, in fact, the chief could see that those aren’t the only life threatening conditions I walk with daily.

You “see,” chief, that your comment steps into a world you can’t know unless you’re living it. I’m sure that you have great qualifications to be chief. But when it comes to telling people that because they don’t “look” ill to you, they must not be, anyone’s qualifications are suspect.

Please do what you must to protect Federal Way. But don’t do it based on your preconceived notion of what a disabled or ill person should look like.

Douglas Orton, Des Moines