Pubdate: Mon, 11 Apr 2005
Source: Newport Daily News, The (RI)
Section: From The Statehouse (Column)
Copyright: 2005. The Newport Daily News.
Contact:  http://www.newportdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1808
Author: Joe Baker, Daily News Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

SENATOR HUFFS AND PUFFS OVER MARIJUANA BILL

Watching the over-the-top display from one state senator during a 
legislative hearing last week made me feel like using a retort favored by 
my friends more than 20 years ago:

"You don't have to be a jerk just because you know how."

Of course, we didn't use the word "jerk" back then, but the meaning remains 
the same.

The hearing was on legislation that would allow the medical use of 
marijuana. Ten states already have a similar law, which would allow people 
with debilitating diseases to seek prescriptions for marijuana to control 
their symptoms. Even in relatively conservative, Republican Arizona, the 
bill was overwhelmingly approved in a voter referendum.

Some could be forgiven for the knee-jerk reaction that the bill is a 
back-door attempt to legalize marijuana. But after reading restrictions 
included in the legislation and listening to testimony of those who 
experience the kind of pain healthy people couldn't even imagine, 
thoughtful people should be able to get beyond that.

The first witness last Tuesday was a 42-year-old registered nurse with 
multiple sclerosis. The woman described her symptoms. She had never used 
marijuana, she said, but would if she could. After the woman answered a few 
questions posed by committee members, Sen. Leo R. Blais, R-Coventry, piped up.

Rather than asking a question, Blais used his time to rail against the 
legislation as nothing more than an attempt to legalize pot. If it passed, 
he said, his voice rising in indignation, everyone who strained their back 
raking leaves would be getting marijuana prescriptions. There are plenty of 
prescriptive drugs out there to alleviate pain and other symptoms, said 
Blais, a pharmacist.

"This will continue to promote drug use in our kids and in our adults," 
Blais railed.

When the bill's sponsor, Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence, pointed out the 
safeguards in the bill aimed at preventing misuse, Blais sat there, hiding 
a grin behind a raised hand. Minutes later, Blais walked out of the 
hearing, having thrown his bomb. He never heard the testimony from three 
physicians, including the former head of the psychology and neuroscience 
department at Brown University, relating the scientific evidence supporting 
the use of marijuana to alleviate symptoms of people with serious diseases 
such as cancer, AIDS, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.

Blais did not hear the testimony that, unlike many of the drugs Blais 
himself dispenses, marijuana does not have serious side effects and is not 
addictive.

The evidence and personal experience did prompt one committee member to 
change his view on the issue. Sen. Michael J. Damiani, D-East Providence, a 
retired policeman, opposed the bill last year, but this year signed on as a 
co-sponsor. His conversion came after he saw several people close to him 
suffer from cancer.

"Anything I can do to make their lives easier ... seems like a good thing 
to do," Damiani said.

It seems so logical. If marijuana could ease the vomiting and lack of 
appetite for a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy, why not allow it? 
If, as described at the hearing, marijuana helps calm the violent tremors 
of MS patients, why deny them that relief? If marijuana can ease the pain 
and suffering of an end-game AIDS patient, what is the objection? Doctors 
prescribe and pharmacists provide far more serious drugs with potentially 
harmful side effects to control those symptoms now. And not one doctor came 
forward to detail any harmful effects marijuana might have on a patient.

Would legalizing marijuana for medical use, as Blais claims, cause young 
people to lurch toward reefer madness? No more so than seeing their parent 
take prescription drugs to control their symptoms would push them toward 
drug abuse.

One potential side effect, though, just might be compassion for people who 
are suffering.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman