Pubdate: Fri, 13 Jun 2014
Source: Star-Gazette (NY)
Copyright: 2014sStar-Gazette
Contact:  http://www.stargazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1005

N.Y. SHOULD APPROVE MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

Regulation Is Key to Prevent Abuse

New York has almost made the legal flip from viewing marijuana 
possession as a crime to seeing it as a medicine.

A full change could come in the remaining few days of the legislative 
session, which is expected to conclude business at the end of this 
coming week.The holdout is the New York Senate.

The medical marijuana proposal is contained in the aptly titled 
Compassion Care Act. It would allow certified patients to use 
marijuana under medical supervision. Several states now allow 
marijuana in treating epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and the nausea 
that affects many chemotherapy patients.

With the bill's name and mission, it's easy to see why legalizing 
medical marijuana in New York is moving toward approval. The tipping 
point between a one-house bill that fails and a new state law will be 
in restricting medical marijuana to legitimate medical uses.

Opinion polls show between 80 and 90 percent of state residents 
support the medical marijuana legislation, an astonishing level of 
agreement in our quarrelsome state.

The bill passed the New York Assembly for the fifth time in late May 
in a 91-34 vote. In our region, Assemblywomen Donna Lupardo, 
D-Endwell, and Barbara Lifton, D-Ithaca, voted for the proposal. 
Opposing it were Republican assemblymen representing parts of our 
region: Clifford Crouch, R-Bainbridge; Christopher Friend, R-Big 
Flats; Gary Finch R-Springport and Phil Palmesano, R-Corning.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he would sign a marijuana bill that 
contained sufficient safeguards restricting it to medical use.

New York has learned to manage similar problems with many drugs that 
have both medicinal and illegal purposes. Morphine and steroids are 
prime examples.

Anyone who has cared for someone making the painful passage from 
chronic disease to death knows this lesson. The experience blends 
gratefulness for palliative drugs that ease pain with an awareness 
that those same drugs can destroy other lives.

Among our region's state senators, Tom O'Mara, R-C, Big Flats, has 
announced his support for approving the use of medical marijuana. In 
Binghamton, Tom Libous, R-Binghamton, has moved along the arc many 
have traveled in considering a legal role for marijuana.

As a leading state senator, Libous championed the state's anti-drug 
efforts and frequently spoke of the dangers marijuana and other drugs 
posed. Now, with his regrettable first-hand experience with 
chemotherapy, Libous sees the compassionate rationale for medical 
marijuana. If it became legal, Libous said he would try it, but he 
remains undecided on how to vote on the issue.

His ability to reconsider his past opinions are commendable, and we 
urge him to take the action in the state senate that might allow him 
and other New Yorkers to have more comfortable lives while living 
with a chronic illness.
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