Pubdate: Sat, 05 Oct 2002
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2002 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265

WHEN IT'S OK TO INHALE

Last month, officials in a California town aided and abetted the 
distribution of marijuana as hundreds of residents cheered. To get the pot, 
Santa Cruz residents had to meet qualifications, one of which was that they 
be ill.

Cannabis relieves both pain and nausea. Accordingly, California has passed 
a law permitting the drug to be used for those purposes. Anti-drug zealotry 
has led the feds to oppose the law, however. Hence, armed with a U.S. 
Supreme Court ruling that the federal ban on pot trumps state law, drug 
enforcement agents have been raiding California farms that grow marijuana 
for medicinal purposes, uprooting the plants and arresting the growers.

To protest, Santa Cruz officials staged a rally that featured a marijuana 
giveaway. Mayor Christopher Krohn told The New York Times: "This is not an 
attempt to embarrass the (Drug Enforcement Administration), but rather a 
compassionate gathering in support of sick people who need their medicine."

The federal government, according to DEA chief Asa Hutchinson, doesn't 
object to the use of marijuana's active ingredient, THC, for medicinal 
purposes - providing it is prescribed by physicians in that form. The drug, 
he says, ought to be subject to the same rigorous tests as other 
prescription drugs. The problem with marijuana as an inhaled product, he 
adds, is that the patient also ingests carcinogens similar to those in 
cigarettes.

Cigarettes, of course, are addictive, legal products with no medicinal 
purpose, which suggests some inconsistency in Hutchinson's position. 
Curiously, the government manages to think more flexibly and realistically 
about other, harder drugs. For instance, it outlaws - as it should - the 
recreational use of morphine, but permits doctors to prescribe the narcotic 
to kill pain.

Why can't marijuana in inhaled form enjoy similar, dual status? After all, 
the experts note that it provides relief to terminally ill patients. It's 
possible that part of the medicinal effect is psychological - the ritual of 
smoking a joint. So what? Some patients prefer marijuana to morphine as a 
painkiller because the former keeps them more alert. Yet, irrationally, 
federal policy steers patients to the more addictive drug.

Federal law ought to permit doctors to prescribe marijuana where 
appropriate. Sure, the authorities would have to monitor its sale to guard 
against abuse, just as they do with other prescription drugs. But if 
Congress lacks the gumption to pass such a law, the federal government at 
least ought to stay out of the way of states doing the right thing.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth