Pubdate: Sat, 03 May 2014
Source: Dalles Chronicle, The (OR)
Copyright: 2014 Eagle Newspapers Inc.
Contact: http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/opinions/submit_letter.shtml
Website: http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3382

A TIME TO PREPARE, NOT PANIC

Wasco County this past week put an end to the possibility that a 
marijuana dispensary might be located here in the next year. The 
Dalles did the same earlier in the month, enacting a one-year ban -- 
all the state has been willing to allow until the question of whether 
or not cities and counties can permanently ban the dispensaries is 
decided, most likely in court.

We hope that local jurisdictions use the time to develop a regulatory 
approach to marijuana dispensaries, rather than just hoping the whole 
issue goes away.

While marijuana use and sale remain illegal at the federal level, 
voters are expressing the opinion in growing numbers that federal 
marijuana policy is an overblown response to a relatively small 
issue. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia now have laws 
allowing the use, and in some cases sale, of medical marijuana.

Two, Colorado and Washington, have already made adult use, sale and 
cultivation of marijuana legal for recreational purposes.

A Pew Research Center poll released April 2 suggests a majority of 
Americans, 52 percent, now believe marijuana should be legalized.

Whether recreational marijuana should be legalized or not is a debate 
for a different day in Oregon, but the issue of dispensaries is here 
now since about two-thirds of counties and more than 200 cities have 
enacted the one-year dispensary bans.

Some criminal justice authorities suggest marijuana has no place in 
the medicine cabinet -- and that the risks of marijuana outweigh its merits.

In some cases that may be true. A 2013 report from Northwestern 
University Feinberg School of Medicine's Matthew Smith found changes 
in gray matter in juvenile subjects that can affect working memory, 
which is the ability to process information and transfer it to 
long-term memory. The study focused on recreational pot use in the 
brain's still formative years, so it may or may not have implications 
for adult brains.

However, studies from respected organizations including the Institute 
on Medicine and the National Institute on Drug Abuse suggest there is 
value in medical marijuana use for purposes including pain relief, 
control of nausea and vomiting, appetite stimulation, and anxiety. At 
the least, they say it can be beneficial in treatment of 
chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting (Institute 
of Medicine).

The same 1999 study noted that potential dependency and withdrawal 
symptoms are milder than other drugs including benzodiazepines, 
opiates, cocaine or nicotine.

"The effects of cannabinoids on the symptoms studied are generally 
modest, and in most cases, there are more effective medications," the 
report stated. "However, people vary in their responses to 
medications and there will likely always be a subpopulation of 
patients who do not respond well to other medications.

An earlier national survey of oncologists revealed that 48 percent of 
those surveyed would prescribe marijuana if it were legal, and 44 
percent had recommended it, even when illegal.

In addition, a health study in Los Angeles County showed no positive 
associations between marijuana and cancer, especially when adjusted 
for cigarette smoking and other factors.

Even the National Institute on Drug Abuse suggested this year that 
"several chemicals may prove useful for treating a range of illnesses 
or symptoms." Research on marijuana has already led to the 
development of two FDA-approved medications containing cannabinoids 
but eliminating the "high" and other side effects produced by smoking 
and eating marijuana.

However, while the effects may be less consistent, some people prefer 
the botanical version of THC, rather than the processed pill. And 
accessibility to the drug, when legal, can be as easy as going to a 
household planter. Dispensaries will make it more convenient for 
people who worry about risks of having marijuana -- which is still 
illegal in Oregon for other uses -- in their own homes.

While purchasers of marijuana won't have as much knowledge of where 
and how the marijuana was cultivated, these issues might be where 
local regulations come in.

Other local residents fear that the presence of dispensaries in 
communities and marijuana in households might encourage more young 
people to take up recreational use, and the chart of changing youth 
perceptions above might support that fear. But the same is true of 
illegal use of prescription drugs by young people, which has been 
called "epidemic" in recent years. That hasn't stopped doctors from 
prescribing them or patients from using them -- even though some may 
have much more severe addiction consequences and other side effects 
than marijuana.

It remains up to the legal user to secure any drug from inappropriate 
use by others, and the same should be true with medical marijuana.

It's time to divorce ourselves from the hysterical drug policies of 
the past, which continue to make it more difficult to take advantage 
of the beneficial use of marijuana as a therapeutic drug. Even if 
marijuana produces a "high" as a side effect, so do many legal pharmaceuticals.

As for the fear that more young people will find marijuana use 
acceptable if it is used for medical

purposes, that can just as likely be blamed on an all-or-nothing 
policy that won't distinguish between legitimate medical purpose and 
illicit behavior.

In addition, as long as our attitudes toward legal mind- and 
body-altering substances like alcohol and tobacco remain what they 
are, it seems unlikely that public pot policy will radically alter 
teen behavior. As the chart above suggests, the change in marijuana 
perception and use began years before medical uses came into play in 
the mid-1990s.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom