cannabisnews.com: Pass The Pot





Pass The Pot
Posted by CN Staff on April 30, 2004 at 10:21:50 PT
Editorial
Source: Bennington Banner 
When a heckler interrupted a question-and-answer session held in Montpelier Tuesday between state lawmakers and Dr. Andrea Barthwell, the deputy director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, he highlighted the depth of emotion that surrounds the issue of legalizing the use of marijuana for sanctioned medical purposes.Legislators are grappling with a bill that has already passed the state senate which would allow for physicians to prescribe marijuana to patients when they feel it is an appropriate treatment. Right now those doctors would be breaking the law here, although not in British Columbia, Canada and nine other states - Arkansas, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington - where such use has been legalized for medical purposes.
Advocates for the passage of such legislation argue marijuana - one of the more potent symbols of the rebellious 1960s when many present lawmakers were in college or high school - would relieve pain for sufferers of cancer, multiple sclerosis, and AIDS-related diseases. Critics of the proposed bill strike back by saying the scientific evidence for such claims is lacking and becomes at best a "cruel hoax" in Barthwell's words, for those sufferers.The most recent and most respected research done on medical marijuana comes from the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine's study written in 1999, which concluded that there was reason to believe that marijuana, if controlled correctly, could have a therapeutic value for patients in search of pain relief and control of nausea, and also showed signs of improving appetites. The study also found there was no conclusive evidence to support the notion that opening the door to marijuana use this way would lead to a widespread use by the general population.Well, perhaps. Those who want to use marijuana - or pot, Mary Jane, weed, herb, reefer or whatever else you want to call it - are already finding it from other places. Whether those who might be inclined to experiment with the drug for recreational use would do so more frequently if it were legalized in certain circumstances is impossible to say for sure.What message it sends to youngsters is another tricky question, although the popular culture already sends so many mixed messages to kids that this one may be irrelevant.Why do we decry tobacco use at every opportunity, yet the state cheerfully continues to collect tax revenue from it? Why is alcohol legal, when every study under the sun has shown alcohol kills far more people - young and old - than marijuana or other drugs?There may be a case to be made that marijuana is a so-called "gateway drug" that seems benign in comparison to more vicious drugs like speed or heroin. But if the experience of many "baby boomers" who came of age during the 1960s when pot and other drugs burst onto the mainstream of society is any clue, there can be no doubt that there is some merit to that warning. But the weight of scientific evidence and the simple humanitarian impulse to relieve suffering argue for a more tolerant approach, and we hope the House passes the bill, even though it faces a strong likelihood of a veto by Gov. James Douglas. In an era of outrageous pharmaceutical drug prices, and a health-care system straining under skyrocketing costs and insurance premiums, this seems like something worth a try, with proper safeguards built in.Who knows, in time maybe the federal government might get around to it, and see marijuana, like cigarettes, alcohol - oops did we forget gambling? - that could be a splendid source of tax revenue and put the drug lords out of business.If we didn't have to worry about the war on drugs, maybe we could find more resources for the war on terror. Source: Bennington Banner (VT)Published: Friday, April 30, 2004Copyright: 2004 by MediaNews Group, Inc. Contact: shaskell benningtonbanner.comWebsite: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/Transcript: Hearing On Medical Marijuanahttp://freedomtoexhale.com/hearing.htmBush Official Presents Case Against Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18746.shtmlWhite House Official Talks About Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18742.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by BGreen on May 01, 2004 at 01:27:24 PT
Darn Abbreviations
AR is Arkansas, AK is Alaska. Got that? There's going to be a test on this later.I'm glad they were sort of on our side. I just wish they'd be a little more careful.I, on the other hand, never make mistaks. LOLThe Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #3 posted by Commonsense on April 30, 2004 at 20:52:00 PT:
Medical Marijuana is not Legal in Arkansas
I don't know where he got that from, because it's far from true. 
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Comment #2 posted by Jose Melendez on April 30, 2004 at 11:46:07 PT
away with it, were it not for those meddling kids
http://www.mapinc.org/letters/1997/07/lte4.htmlhttp://paranoia.lycaeum.org/marijuana/facts/myth-gatewayhttp://www.drugpolicycentral.com/bot/topic/gateway.htmhttp://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/statistics/statistics_info2.shtmlhttp://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021202-030109-4556rhttp://www.drugwar.com/byrnetwins.shtmhttp://www.snitch.com/000047.html
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Comment #1 posted by BigDawg on April 30, 2004 at 10:31:57 PT
Gateway?
"There may be a case to be made that marijuana is a so-called "gateway drug" that seems benign in comparison to more vicious drugs like speed or heroin. But if the experience of many "baby boomers" who came of age during the 1960s when pot and other drugs burst onto the mainstream of society is any clue, there can be no doubt that there is some merit to that warning."Ummm, NO.There has been shown to be NO gateway effect.Just do a little research on the research before ya report on it.
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