Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV) Contact: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/ Copyright: Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1998 Pubdate: 18 Oct 1998 Author: Barry R. McCaffrey Special to the Review-Journal Fax: 702-383-4676 SEEING THROUGH THE HAZE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA Proven scientific processes, not the ballot box, should determine what drugs can be used to treat our ills On Election Day, residents of Nevada will be asked to vote on marijuana. The state ballot features a referendum that would legalize cultivation, distribution, possession and consumption of marijuana ostensibly for medical purposes. We should all seek safe and effective medicine to treat medical ills, but our collective interest is better served when proven scientific processes minister to disease -- not the ballot box. The Nevada pro-pot amendment is a lead-in to drug legalization. This amendment does not represent the grass-roots sentiments of Nevadans. It is part of a stealthy national movement, bankrolled by well-known pro-drug groups that have provoked similar measures in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state, and the nation's capital. Advocates of drug legalization have admitted that they couched the marijuana question in medical terms to camouflage the issue. We can't afford to send the wrong message to our children about marijuana or other illegal drugs. Juvenile marijuana usage rates have skyrocketed in the past six years. Kids now begin smoking pot in the sixth and seventh grades. Half of today's teens do so before completing high school. Many will suffer from decisions made while their judgment is impaired by the psychoactive effects of this drug. Indeed, marijuana is now the second leading cause of car crashes among young people (after alcohol). If we lower the societal barriers further, then marijuana use among youth surely will escalate along with the negative consequences of drug abuse. This was Alaska's experience after a pro-pot ruling essentially decriminalized the drug in the 1970s. A leading medical journal recently warned readers about the risks posed by unscientific medicine. This journal outlined how American health has benefited from remedies whose safety and efficacy have been validated by statistically reliable evidence and randomized, controlled clinical studies. Arbitrary dosages, contaminated ingredients, and harmful or deadly components largely have been eliminated from American medicine. This marijuana referendum would turn its back on such progress and return us to the medical dark ages when leeches were used to suck blood from sick patients. There is no sense in subverting the scientific process for assessing, testing and approving medications by resorting to a non-medical, political process. If pot were such a wonderful medicine, why haven't more doctors prescribed Marinol -- the real "medical marijuana?" The active ingredient in the cannabis leaf, THC, is synthesized in measured dosages as Marinol, a prescription drug that has been available for 15 years. The FDA has encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to develop other methods for administering THC -- for example, by patch, suppository or inhaler. Such developments may make it easier for more individuals to realize the possible therapeutic benefits of THC under controlled, prescribed conditions. Any purported medicine smoked in unmeasured amounts and unknown purity is suspect. No one argues that people should eat moldy bread instead of taking a penicillin capsule. Pills are cleaner, safer and more efficacious than smoke. Crude marijuana, unlike Marinol, contains a host of tars and other dangerous substances that have no therapeutic value. If components of marijuana other than THC are found to be medically valuable, the current scientific process will approve those components for safe use. Nevada doesn't need wholesale experimenting with dangerous home remedies. We should avoid sham "medicine" that provides cover for widespread trafficking in illegal drugs. Now is the time for concerned citizens to say "yes" to their communities, their children and themselves by voting "no" on this pro-drug referendum. It's better to be safe than sorry. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski