cannabisnews.com: Wasted Motion Against Medical Marijuana





Wasted Motion Against Medical Marijuana
Posted by FoM on December 05, 2000 at 16:45:37 PT
Editorial
Source: Chattanooga Times 
Nine states have now adopted "medically necessary'' use standards, most under detailed prescription guidelines for physicians. But neither the explicit message of citizens' approval for medical marijuana use in statewide referendums, nor more traditional states' rights prerogatives, have deterred the Clinton administration's Justice Department. It's still pursuing its 3-year-old effort to ban prescription cannabis.
The administration has just persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its challenge of a medical-marijuana use statute in California, one of the first states to adopt such a measure.The court's agreement presents it with a core conflict.The conservatives on the court most inclined to oppose marijuana for medical purposes also are most inclined to respect states' rights.The court's liberals have the reverse problem.They may be more sympathetic to medical cannabis, but if it's allowed by a state law that conflicts with federal law, they're more likely to step in on the side of the administration.In any event, the government's legal quest to strike down the state's laws is wrong-headed. It ignores, without specific reason, the argument that medical necessity is a legitimate and widely respected exception to law -- hence the legal use of opiates and otherwise illegal narcotics in many common drugs and painkillers. The Justice Department seems instead to take its fervor from the notion that any use of cannabis, however justified, will spur illegal use, or possibly wider acceptance of pot.The former is untenable, and the latter is unrealistic. Current manufacture of medicinal drugs and regulations governing their distribution and prescription offer pretty convincing evidence that marijuana can be legally grown and distributed without inviting criminal enterprise. Indeed, tens of thousands of individuals are now believed to be receiving prescription marijuana from legal growing cooperatives in Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, California, Maine and, soon, Nevada, which approved medical use of marijuana in a referendum earlier this month.The notion of medical use entrenching cultural acceptance of marijuana begs the question: Will preventing its medical use deter illegal marijuana use? No, it won't. Just as alcohol was widely available during prohibition, marijuana has been widely available for decades, particularly since the 1960s. Most any high school student here will admit that they have peers who smoke marijuana, and that they could get some in 30 minutes if they wanted to.In fact, the Justice Department is so entrenched in the nation's ill-conceived and ineffective drug laws, and costly criminalization of personal use, that it simply will not accept evidence of medical efficacy of marijuana.Yet a number of studies document legitimate medical uses, such as reducing nausea from cancer chemotherapy treatments.The Justice Department should drop its challenge of well-debated state laws and focus instead on helping revise criminal drug statutes to emphasize civil penalties for personal use. Allowing medical use of cannabis to proceed unhindered in states that approve it might promote wider, more effective drug treatment studies as well. The Justice Department should be interested in that sort of outcome, not more futile, and needlessly punitive, prohibitionist responses.Note: States' approval of medical use of marijuana has advanced appreciably the past few years.Source: Chattanooga Times & Free Press (TN)Published: December 4, 2000Address: P.O. Box 1447, Chattanooga, TN 37403Contact: letters timesfreepress.comWebsite: http://www.timesfreepress.com/index.htmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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