Pubdate: Sat, 03 Jan 2004
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2004 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Author: Mike Nichols

POLITICAL FEARS MAY STYMIE POT LEGISLATION

Here's the latest buzz.

Republican state Rep. Gregg Underheim's push for legal, medicinal
marijuana seems likely to start a whole new round of questions about
whether folks ever partook of the stuff themselves - for less than
therapeutic reasons.

And that's a flashback politicians aren't always eager to
experience.

Reporter: Ever smoke cannabis, sir?

Politician: Smoke cannabis? . . . You mean blow a doobie? Smoke a "J"?
Puff the dragon?

Reporter: Ah . . . yeah.

Politician: No comment.

I've done it myself, I confess - asked the question, that
is.

Ten years ago I covered the race for attorney general between our
governor, Jim Doyle, and Jeff Wagner, the former federal drug
prosecutor who is now a radio talk show host.

And I have a copy of an old story right in front of me stating that I
once "prodded" Wagner to fess up.

He wouldn't.

"Whether somebody was an adolescent and smoked marijuana . . . is
irrelevant," he told me. "If I was smoking marijuana when I was in the
U.S. attorney's office, that is a very different question."

And the answer to that one, he added, is "absolutely
not."

Just as I was looking at that clip - coincidentally - Wagner brought
Underheim's bill up on the air, and opined that it makes a lot of sense.

It does.

Canada already allows use of marijuana for medical purposes. And in
the fall, pharmacies in Holland, where smoking the stuff has long been
an accepted part of the culture anyway, started selling
government-tested pot.

In the meantime, at least 10 states already have some sort of
medicinal marijuana law, and a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision
could encourage others to join the party.

Not that people on chemotherapy are partying.

They're praying - often to no avail.

Assembly Speaker John Gard has already said the "odds are stacked
against" Underheim and that there is "a big mountain to climb."

Underheim himself, in the meantime, said Friday that it's a "long
shot" because of concerns, at least in part, about public reaction.

Folks in Madison, in other words, think the average dolt is too dense
to differentiate between a dealer providing a fix and a doctor
providing relief.

In reality, most folks have retained enough brain cells to recognize
the difference between responsible medicine and irresponsible recreation.

Or, for that matter, between public policy and personal foolery.

Ten years ago, people might have cared whether a politician once
smoked a joint.

Today, it's a tossup whether - strictly in political terms - it's
worse to be an equivocator who claims to have smoked but not inhaled,
a geek who never made a mistake, or a druggie who did.

Doyle himself has conceded he smoked marijuana twice while in
college.

Former Gov. Scott McCallum, who went to college in St. Paul, has
quipped that, "at Macalester, the only way around it was to not breathe."

Hey, you think it's hard breathing fresh air at Macalester, try going
to school in Holland for nine months like I once did.

Nobody is advocating legalization of marijuana for fun.

And maybe some politician somewhere will come up with a decent
scientific reason for opposing its use by folks who are so sick from
chemo they are trembling.

In the meantime, shooting Underheim down just to avoid being soft on
drugs is soft in something else - the head. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake