Pubdate: Mon, 06 Feb 2006
Source: Eagle-Tribune, The (MA)
Copyright: 2006 The Eagle-Tribune
Contact:  http://www.eagletribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/129
Author: Steven Epstein
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

MASSACHUSETTS NEEDS REASONABLE MARIJUANA LAWS

In 1991 the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that Joe 
Hutchins, a Navy veteran with life-threatening scleroderma, could not 
use medical necessity as a defense to a marijuana cultivation charge, 
even if his marijuana use kept him alive.

Within months the Legislature, led by members whose families  faced 
similar health emergencies, became a national leader in trying to 
protect  patients for whom cannabis has therapeutic value. That law 
unfortunately provides no comfort to patients.

It requires the state Department of Public Health (DPH) to provide 
the medicine to patients from a source approved by the federal 
government. The Clinton and Bush administrations  refuse DPH's 
requests for a supply.

Inspired by Massachusetts' example, 11  states, including three in 
New England, adopted laws that protect patients, whatever the source 
of their medicine, from state and local arrest and prosecution.

Last spring the U.S. Supreme Court decided the federal power to 
regulate interstate commerce includes the power to interfere with the 
local and noncommercial activities of people like Angel Raich and 
Diane Monson, whose  conduct is legal under California law. As a 
result, patients and their  caregivers in all 50 states risk federal 
prosecution for using a plant that  first appeared in medical 
literature more than 5,000 years ago. In the 11 states  that protect 
patient use of marijuana with a doctor's recommendation, however, 
patients no longer fear their local police.

Have opponents read the bill that would make Massachusetts the 12th 
state? The bill requires physicians to certify that the patient 
benefits from medical use. DPH must approve of a patient's 
participation in the program before patients may, in limited 
quantities, legally possess medicine obtained at the black market or 
cultivated inside a locked facility. Opponents thunder about the 
dangers of marijuana use and claim there are better pharmaceuticals. 
Their concern for the recreational use of cannabis impairs their 
judgment about the legitimacy of their neighbors' health care. All 
medicines powerful enough to treat serious illness have potential bad 
side effects, most far worse and frequent than the never-deadly 
cannabis. The cost of patented pharmaceuticals continues to explode.

Cannabis, even on the black market, is relatively inexpensive. It 
also is safe and effective according to patients and their doctors in 
treating a wide range of symptoms and  side effects from other drugs 
and treatments. For example, the side effects of  chemotherapy may be 
treated by spending the night at the hospital at a cost 
of  thousands, with a patented pharmaceutical for hundreds, or by 
ingesting less than $5 of cannabis.

None of these treatments works for everyone, but nobody  should be 
arrested for choosing any one of them with their physician's 
approval. Since the 2000 state election, voters in 34 Massachusetts 
cities and towns have voted for legislation allowing "seriously ill 
patients with their doctor's written recommendation, to possess and 
grow small amounts of marijuana for their  personal medical use." In 
2004, 63 percent of the voters approved and only 27  percent opposed 
state-approved medical access.

Sharing this view, all but one  member of the Massachusetts 
congressional delegation support limiting federal  power to protect 
patients in states that permit doctor-approved cannabis use  from 
federal interference with their health care. In the same elections, 
voters in 80 cities and towns said marijuana possession should be a 
civil violation and not a crime.

Clearly, few voters want  to arrest and prosecute adults for 
marijuana possession, and even fewer want to punish patients trying 
to live with cancer, AIDS, MS or chronic pain. The voters recognize 
that prohibition is the weakest control available to government over 
an easily grown plant.

They understand prohibition creates irresistible profits to those 
willing to risk prosecution. The best policy for cannabis is to 
legalize, tax and regulate this easily grown plant, used in the past 
month by about 10 percent of Massachusetts' adult population, while 
prohibiting it to children as we do tobacco and alcohol. Allowing the 
ill and infirm to use cannabis, as provided by the pending 
legislation, is humane and sensible.

To arrest and prosecute them is simply  wicked. Steven Epstein, an 
attorney, is a founder of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition 
and has long been active in the effort to loosen the laws regarding 
marijuana use. He is the parent of two teenagers and a  preteen.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman