Snuff out pot petitionPublished in The Orlando Sentinel, June 4, 1998 Floridians should think about the story of the Trojan Horse before signing a petition to legalize medical use of marijuana. The people of ancient Troy brought the large, wooden horse in through the gates of their city because they thought that it was a gift. They didn't realize that invading soldiers had hidden inside the horse. The petition to change Florida's constitution to allow medical use of marijuana hides an equally unpleasant surprise. While appealing to voters' sympathy, it would open a sneaky back door to legalize marijuana cultivation, sale and use. Floridians for Medical Rights, pushing the petition to put the issue on the ballot for voters' approval, said it wants to legalize marijuana use for the benefit of people suffering from cancer, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, glaucoma and anorexia. They're blowing smoke. Their sales pitch only tells part of the story. Closer examination of the group's petition shows that it seeks to make marijuana available for people with ``arthritis, chronic pain, spasticity, migraine and other specified medical condition or illness.'' A shrewd lawyer easily could twist such broad wording to mean anything from a bad knee to a tummy ache. The devil lies in the petition's fine print, which in one section states: ``No natural person may be subjected to criminal prosecution or other legal sanction based on his or her cultivation, provision, transportation or sale of marijuana for, or to, a person who has obtained marijuana for a certified medical use.'' That wording would give blanket cover to anyone who wants to grow anything, from one plant to 400 acres of marijuana. To beat a drug rap, a grower could say: ``This is a big mistake officer. I was growing marijuana to sell to sick people.'' The proponents provide no compelling scientific evidence of a medical need for marijuana. They talk as though only marijuana can treat pain, ease nausea or stimulate appetite in people suffering with cancer, AIDS or glaucoma. In reality, a battery of medications have proven effective in treating those problems. Of course, physicians need additional solutions to such medical problems, but they can't, and shouldn't, prescribe any medicine unless it has undergone a rigorous scientific review to ensure its effectiveness and safety. Marijuana has received no such evaluation. No one has determined the dosages of marijuana appropriate to treat patients with different afflictions. Making an end-run around scientific evaluation, as the petition would attempt, shows disregard for patients. Voters should extinguish the petition drive to legalize using marijuana for medical purposes. [Posted 06/03/98 7:52 PM EST]
REPLYA June 3rd editorial in the Sentinel has called on voters to "snuff out" the ballot initiative, sponsored by Floridians for Medical Rights, authorizing the medicinal use of marijuana. In the past two years, similar proposals have been ratified overwhelmingly by voters in California and Arizona, as more and more Americans are discovering the benefits that medicinal marijuana can bring to friends and family members suffering from a wide spectrum of diseases. In fact, marijuana has been utilized as a medicine all over the planet for over 5000 years and was widely used and prescribed in America until 1937. It was in that year that the war on marijuana began... a sixty-year-old public policy based on bad evidence, bad science, and bad faith with the American people. The editorial bolsters its argument by stating that "proponents provide no compelling scientific evidence of a medical need for marijuana." This is like asserting that one must be guilty until proven innocent. In fact, for decades, the opponents of medicinal marijuana have tried to prove marijuana's harmful effects... but have consistently failed to do so. Meanwhile, reams of anecdotal studies have proven that marijuana, in its smoked form, is extremely beneficial in treating a variety of maladies including AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, asthma, and multiple sclerosis. It seems only fair that ill citizens, suffering from these ailments, should have the right to any palliative that eases their pain until it can be proven harmful--not the other way around! (It's ironic that doctors are presently allowed to prescribe cocaine and morphine, two drugs whose capacity for abuse far outweigh marijuana's.) In addition, it is false to say that marijuana has received "no such evaluation" to "ensure its effectiveness and safety." In 1982, The National Academy of Sciences recommended the decriminalization of marijuana, pointing to its non-deleterious effects. And in 1988, Francis L. Young, the Drug Enforcement Agency's chief administrative law judge, ruled that: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known... it would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance." His opinion was rejected. The Sentinel has now joined the long list of "Drug Warriors" who continue to disavow any scientific report whose results differ with their long-held dogmatic opinions. They call for more and more studies, but consistently ignore the ones already done (reminding me of my two young daughters, who constantly repeat the same questions until they can get the answers they want!). The paper is decidedly out of step with 79% of the American people, who support the idea of legalizing marijuana to relieve pain and for other medical uses if prescribed by a doctor. The Medical Marijuana Initiative will eventually pass in Florida, as voters begin to see through the smoke screen of hysteria passing for history, science fiction passing for science, and propaganda passing for truth.
Al Krulick |
