Pubdate: Tue, 15 May 2001
Source: Albuquerque Tribune (NM)
Copyright: 2001 The Albuquerque Tribune
Contact:  http://www.abqtrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/11
Author: Kate Nelson

WE HAVE A DRUG FOR EVERYTHING, EXCEPT THE PARANOIA ABOUT POT

You have to admire people who endure painful, incapacitating illnesses with 
the occasional aid of a marijuana cigarette. Were it me, I'd wimp out. None 
of that medical marijuana for me. Instead, bring on the medical morphine -- 
the real stuff, the rocket fuel, the rapid transit to the Land of Nod.

Funny thing is, I'd have more luck getting the morphine than the marijuana. 
It's legal for doctors to prescribe morphine for cancer patients, Prozac 
for women experiencing PMS, and Ritalin for first-graders whose minds tend 
to stray a bit. But marijuana is a pipe dream. The "Reefer Madness" 
boogeyman in the overstuffed medicine cabinets of our "drug-free society." 
And thanks to that, all those people enduring painful, incapacitating 
illnesses this week got yet another whack to their health.

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered the blow. Or, more accurately, Congress 
did with its Controlled Substances Act. On Monday, the justices ruled 8-0 
that the federal law specifically rejects the notion that marijuana might 
have any medical benefits. Until now, nine states have used "medical 
necessity" as the loophole that sufferers of AIDS, cancer, multiple 
sclerosis and other debilitating illnesses can slip through to legally 
consume marijuana.

Many of those patients say the otherwise illegal drug has eased their pain, 
reduced their nausea and heightened their appetites.

New Mexico nearly passed its own medical-marijuana bill in this year's 
legislative session. Competing versions of the bill survived each chamber. 
But both of them withered away on the session's final day, pawns to a 
larger political battle over the tax cut that Gov. Gary Johnson had demanded.

The Republican governor, who has taken aim at the nation's "war on drugs," 
couldn't afford to lose the medical-marijuana battle. In his package of 
seven drug-reform measures, it had seemed the most benign of the bunch.

It carried almost none of those "soft on crime" overtones that turn 
political guts into Jell-O. It didn't make life any easier for addicts and 
drug dealers. And it fit the new political requirement of compassionate 
lawmaking.

Johnson needed such a victory to tout on his national speaking tour 
following the session. And certainly, the issue needed the publicity New 
Mexico could have given it to get Congress' attention.

As it stands, said Sen. Cisco McSorley, an Albuquerque Democrat who pushed 
some of Johnson's reforms, the only way to revive the state's bill is by 
changing the federal law.

"The Republican president and the Republican congress ought to do what they 
said they would do and return power to the states and let them pass their 
own laws," he said.

Rep. Joe Thompson, an Albuquerque Republican who joined McSorley in the 
drug-reform quest, agreed. But changing the federal law won't be easy.

Few politicians want to risk their re-elections on drug-reform bills. 
Someone with the caliber to persuade them otherwise is our senior senator, 
Pete Domenici. But he threatened to oust state Republican Party Chairman 
John Dendahl recently after Dendahl stood up for Johnson's war on the war 
on drugs.

"I wasn't going to call the senator and ask for his help," Thompson said dryly.

Woody Smith, a retired state district judge and chairman of Johnson's Drug 
Policy Advisory Group, called the political balking "an inertia that seems 
unstoppable."

"I'm tired of people saying, 'What kind of a message does this send to 
children?'" he said. "People are dying every day from cigarettes and 
alcohol. Not one person I know of has died from marijuana. Who are we to 
say that if you're dying, a doctor can't prescribe something for you 
because we're afraid of the message that will send to children?

"I'm getting more and more cynical," he said. "What we're doing now is so 
wrong. It's real easy to get down and depressed."

But, hey, it's OK to get down and depressed. After all, you can get drugs 
for that.

Nelson's column runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens