Pubdate: Tue, 16 May 2006
Source: Independent (NJ)
Copyright: 2006 Greater Media Newspapers
Contact:  http://independent.gmnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4172
Author: Greg Bean
Note: This is a 3-topic column. The second part, which covers 
proposals to legalize
medical marijuana in New Jersey, is shown below.

WITH JOHN MERLA, IT'S ONE GOOFY THING AFTER ANOTHER

As the child of parents who both died painful deaths from lung cancer 
and suffered the excruciating effects of harsh chemotherapy, I was 
happy to read in a story by The Associated Press last week that next 
month state lawmakers will consider a bill to legalize marijuana for 
people with debilitating medical conditions. Those conditions would 
include cancer, chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, glaucoma, HIV 
and AIDS, and persistent muscle spasms.

The bill, proposed by Sen. Nicholas Scutari, will come up for 
discussion be-fore a Senate health panel June 8 and, if passed, would 
make New Jersey the 12th state to legalize marijuana for medicinal 
use, even though the federal government does not recognize those 
laws. And although the measure is opposed by the usual gang who say 
it's a smoke screen for generalized legalization, the notion is 
supported by many experts, including the National Academy of 
Sciences, which says pot can help people suffering 
chemotherapy-induced nausea and AIDS wasting.

If you have supported a loved one with terminal cancer through 
chemotherapy, you well know the treatment commonly reduces the 
patient's appetite to the point of staggering weight loss (my father 
weighed 115 pounds when he died, my mother 90). You know that the 
currently available and legalized form of medical marijuana (an 
adulterated version of THC that seeks to stimulate the munchies) does not work.

And you know, from experience, that it is nonsensical, and even 
cruel, to deny terminal patients anything that might make their lives 
easier, might make them more comfortable in their last months.

The argument that allowing those patients access to marijuana might 
lead them to use harder drugs is specious to the point of insanity, 
since most of those patients are already receiving massive doses of 
addictive medication to alleviate pain. To suggest that a patient 
already receiving huge doses of morphine, OxyContin, oxycodone, Xanax 
or the like to manage pain will be threatened by a few tokes of 
marijuana to stimulate appetite is ludicrous.

Carefully supervised, marijuana could be another important tool in 
the physician's box, and a meaningful comfort to patients suffering 
certain diseases. And if enough states legalize it for those humane 
uses, the federal government will eventually have to come around. 
That's why I support passage of this bill in New Jersey. I just wish 
marijuana had been more readily available to my mom and dad.