Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 Source: DrugSense Weekly Section: Feature Article Website: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm Author: Robert Kampia Note: Robert Kampia is executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., which worked in support of the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment. CONGRESS FAILS TO PROTECT MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS On July 23, the U.S. House of Representatives had a chance to protect from arrest patients who have a medical need to use marijuana. Tragically, the House failed to do so. Fortunately, more than half of Colorado's House delegation voted to protect these vulnerable citizens. Only Reps. Scott McInnis (R-Grand Junction), Marilyn Musgrave (R-Loveland), and Joel Hefley (R-Colorado Springs) failed to do so. An amendment proposed by Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) would have prevented the U.S. Justice Department and its Drug Enforcement Administration from interfering with state medical marijuana laws by raiding and arresting patients and caregivers. This moderate proposal would not have forced any state to allow medical marijuana if it doesn't want to. It would simply have required the DEA to respect the wishes of those states that have chosen to protect seriously ill patients from arrest. As a result of the House action, patients battling cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and other terrible illnesses, who find that marijuana relieves their pain and nausea, will still face being rousted out of bed, arrested, handcuffed, booked, and thrown in jail. This isn't just a possibility. It is precisely what happened to Suzanne Pfeil last September. Pfeil, partially paralyzed from post-polio syndrome, was asleep in bed when DEA agents raided the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, California, of which she is a member. Agents stormed into Pfeil's room, pointed automatic rifles at her head, and demanded that she get out of bed. When she pointed to her leg braces and said, "I can't," they handcuffed her and ransacked the premises. Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican, summed up the amendment in an eloquent, emotional speech on the House Floor. "It is immoral for us to put people in jail for trying to alleviate suffering," he said. "It is a travesty for the federal government to send police into my state to arrest people and put them in cages for doing something that the people of my state have voted to make a legal practice." But that is precisely what the federal government has been doing -- and will continue to do, with the explicit permission of Congress. It is doing so despite the fact that back in 1997, the prestigious "New England Journal of Medicine" called the federal ban on medical marijuana "misguided, heavy- handed and inhumane." The federal government continues its war on patients despite pleas from the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, and literally hundreds of other medical, nursing, and public health organizations. But there are reasons for hope. The battle to end this war on the sick is gaining momentum, fueled by anger and disgust over the DEA's raids on patients. The last (and only other) time that medical marijuana was addressed on the House floor, in 1998, a symbolic resolution condemning state medical marijuana laws passed by 311 to 94. This time, 152 House members voted to take concrete action to protect medical marijuana patients. More than two- thirds of House Democrats stood up for patients, as did 15 Republicans who bravely defied their party's closed-minded leadership. Reps. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) and Bob Beauprez (R-Wheatridge) were among those courageous Republicans. In time, they will find themselves on the right side of history. The tide has turned. The federal government's pointless, misguided war on patients will end. The only questions left are how soon it will happen -- and how many people battling terrible illnesses will suffer in the meantime. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake