Pubdate: 3 Jan. 1999
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Fax: 213-237-4712
Forum: http://www.latimes.com/HOME/DISCUSS/
Copyright: 1999 Los Angeles Times.
Author: Robert Scheer  Zuade Kaufman contributed to this
column.

IT'S MADNESS NOT TO INVESTIGATE POT'S MEDICAL USE

Hung over from all that New Year's revelry and once again promising
yourself to abstain? Hah! Maybe you should have tried pot instead of
booze,  Just kidding!

This is not a marijuana commercial, although it would be  good to
counter those smug advertising council ads pimping the drug war.
Particularly after going through a weekend of football games in which
beer is presented to young people as the indispensable ticket to the
good life. Or after visiting many of the livelier dubs for young
people on the Westside where smoking is now so widespread, you can
hardly breathe,

Funny how some laws just don't get enforced. Alcohol kills 100,000 a
year, tobacco 400,000, and it there is hard evidence of the deadliness
of marijuana. particularly if eaten in a brownie rather than smoked,
the federal government has yet to come up with it.

But don't do pot. Marijuana is still a major target of opportunity in
the $11 billion war on drugs, and those warriors don't kid around.
They can mess you up real good, since they have the right to seize
property and in other ways violate due process with an abandon not
permitted in the war on violent crimes. More than half a minion people
are arrested for marijuana possession each year,   don't try it.

Just look at the Gestapo-like tactics employed against those locally
and throughout the state who have attempted to exercise their fight to
relieve the pain of serious illness with marijuana prescribed by a
physician - a right one had presumed was guaranteed by the passage of
Proposition 215.

I get plaintive e-mail all the time from people on the Westside with
AIDS and other serious illnesses who have found marijuana helpful but
are now afraid to buy it. There are also plenty of comments from
physicians who believe marijuana would be helpful to their patients,
but who are intimidated by federal and state threats to punish them if
they prescribe it.

Bill Clinton's Justice Department acting in unity with California
Attorney General Dan Lungren, managed to thwart the will of the voters
by harassing distributors of medical marijuana here and throughout the
state. The drug war has always been driven by an unholy alliance of
just-jail-them reactionaries and do gooder social activists who are
convinced they alone know what's best for us. 

Fortunately, they  are about to be challenged by California's new Attorney
General Bill
Lockyer, who bravely admitted during the campaign that he voted for
Proposition 215. He has said since that he wants to cooperate with
local officials to make it work.  That means cooperating with local
communities if they have different approaches," he told the San
Francisco Examiner, adding "San Francisco would be different than Kern
County"  I hope the politicians around here will identify more with
San Francisco's positive approach to medical marijuana than with Kern
County's. if not, it's up to you to put their feet to the fire. 

Lockyer is operating out of a base of sympathy for those in pain
derived from his experiences with his mother and sister, both of whom
died from leukemia.  But he is also acting out of vast experience in
government, including heading the state Senate as president pro
tempore. Lockyer knows that the limited medical use of marijuana will
provide us with much-needed data vital to shaping a sound drug policy.

The limited use of medically prescribed marijuana is a rare
opportunity to gain reliable evidence on the social and medical

effects of pot. Yes, facts, instead of the reefer-madness hysteria
that has always marked each one of the many wars on drugs going back
to  six decades ago - when marijuana was legal in this country without
any disastrous social consequence.  

Thanks to Proposition 215, new data was being collected by physicians
around the state, and brave
souls opened up distribution points including the Los Angeles Cannabis
Resource Center in West Hollywood, directed by Scott Imler.

After Lungren closed down the Oakland and San Francisco cannabis clubs,
our local one was the biggest in California; but it was threatened by
both state and federal officials.  

I trust Lockyer will be able to talk some sense into the Clinton
Administration and get it to give a
chance to this experiment with a more rational policy..! 

I don't think the drug warriors want that data because it might demonstrate
that
marijuana should not be lumped in with harder drugs. They need to keep
marijuana illegal in order to produce the hoary arrest figures
supporting claims of a drug epidemic. 

As they say truth is the first casualty of war.  The drug war has other
casualties, and none is
more obvious in Los Angeles than the gang violence that is often a
fight over the spoils of the illegal drug trade. That's why state Sen.
Tom Hayden, who has worked long and hard on stopping gang violence,
hailed Lockyer's stance as "very good news, its great." 

Hayden  noted the dramatic decline of violence after the end of alcohol
prohibition
and added, "We have to re-examine the whole war on drugs with respect
to its social cost in increased gang violence. Implementing
Proposition 215 is a great place to begin."  Of  course it is, no
matter what those strange bedfellows Clinton and Lungren think.

I don't know why we spend so much time and money dealing with the
propositions if they don't have the force of law.  I don't even like
it when the ones that I have columnized against pass and are all
bottled up in the courts. Representatve government involves letting
the voters take some risks with how we manage our affairs, to see if
there is a better way And the medical marijuana initiative, now passed
in similar form in six other states, was a modest challenge to a drug
policy that is an obvious disaster.  

It's outrageous to ban a controlled experiment to see if those in deep pain
might not be made
more comfortable. 

My view is that any time someone is in that much pain, who are we to say
they don't have the right to alleviate it by whatever means works for them?
Pot doesn't work for me, never has and
never will. Legal or not, it's not my kind of high. Makes my head feel
as big as the room.   But three years ago, when I showed up at the
UCLA Medical Center to get my stomach cut open, I came fortified. 
When the doc asked if I had anything to drink in the previous 12
hours, I said, "Yeah, about a half-dozen vodka tonics.  He said that
was against the rules, hut I pointed out that the advice sheet had
said clear liquids were permitted. Anyway I said it was the booze that
let me allay my fear enough to show up for the surgery, and he agreed
to proceed with what turned out to be a happy outcome.  As was said,
whatever gets you through the night. 

How dare we tell someone suffering from AIDS that they have no right to eat
a marijuana brownie?

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MAP posted-by: Rich O'Grady