== Forwarded Message Follows =========================================
 * Originally By: Carl@commonlink.net
 * Originally Re: ART: Marijuana's reasonab
 * Original Date: 01-05-97  15:45
 * Original Area: NetMail
http://www.commonlink.com/~olsen/MEDICAL/IOWA/clarence.html
The Des Moines Sunday Register
January 5, 1997, Page 3C.
letters@dmreg.com
                                Clarence PAGE
                     Marijuana's reasonable medical uses
   An elderly man called CNN's daytime "Oprah"-style talk show,
"Talkback."  The topic: medical uses for marijuana.
   The studio audience, made up of ordinary American folks, listened
quietly as the elderly man's voice wafted over them.  He described his pain
and sadness at watching his cancer-stricken wife suffer through the agonies
of chemotherapy.  Then he described how he learned to break a law he thought
he would never break.  He went out and shopped for some marijuana.
   "I'm 74 years old and I'm a law-abiding citizen.  But I went out on the
street and I bought it," he said.  His soft voice grew raspy with emotion.
"And I let my wife have some comfort before she died."
   With that, the man stopped talking and the audience of ordinary American
folks did something extraordinary.  They broke spontaneously into applause.
   They'd never find a jury in this audience to convict that man, I
thought.  It is one thing to oppose medical marijuana in the abstract.  It
is quite another to oppose when a real flesh-and-blood case of suffering and
desperation is facing you.
   Unfortunately, politicians don't always have to face people with real
flesh-and-blood problems.  They only have to face their political
opponents.  Perhaps this explains why the Clinton administration is
following its predecessors by turning a blind eye to common sense.  To avoid
the possibility of misuse by a few, the administration acts to prevent
pain-relieving, life-affirming relief for the many.
   The same day as the CNN show, White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey
announced the government would revoke the licenses and even arrest doctors
who prescribe marijuana for their patients.
   So much for the November ballot issue in California and Arizona that
decided to allow doctors to recommend the use of marijuana for pain relief
and other medicinal reasons.  McCaffrey denounced those expressions of
public sentiments as "a Cheech and Chong drug policy," as if voters were
just too ignorant to know what they were getting into.
   Instead, McCaffrey defended a sort of "Keystone Kops" policy -- except
it's not funny.  It is just pathetic.
   Let's get real: Juries will be no more eager to convict a doctor who
offers marijuana to someone suffering from AIDS, cancer, glaucoma or
multiple sclerosis than the Michigan juries that repeatedly have refused to
convict Dr. Jack Kevorkian for assisting suicides.
   Perhaps the most glaring example is the administrative law judge for the
Drug Enforcement Administration who declared in a 69-page ruling in 1988
that marijuana was "one of the safest therapeutically active substances
known to man."
   After presiding over a 16-year legal battle and hearing testimony by
hundreds of witnesses in Los Angeles, New Orleans and Washington, Judge
Francis L. Young wrote: "The evidence ... clearly shows that marijuana has
been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very
ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision."
   Further: "It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to
continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance
in light of the evidence in this record."
   What was the DEA's response to this finding by its own administrative
law judge?  Simple.  The DEA dismissed it for "ignoring the bulk of medical
evidence," according to a DEA lawyer.
   Yet, the bulk of evidence against marijuana's medical use is not very
conclusive at all.  It is constantly qualified with "could's" and "may's"
and "maybe's."  Why is this so much more persuasive than the evidence in
favor of medical marijuana?
   Yet, even though the Food and Drug Administration has approved studies
of the effects of marijuana on AIDS wasting syndrome by Dr. Donald Abrams of
the University of California at San Francisco, the DEA has refused to grant
Abrams access to medical marijuana.  Other university researchers report
similar complaints.  The DEA seems to be uninterested in research that fails
to support its reefer madness.
   That's what I mean by "Keystone Kops."  This is one of the most pathetic
conflicts between government agencies over an issue of health since the
federal government began to condemn tobacco through one branch while
subsidizing it through others.
   Meanwhile, the suffering needlessly suffer even more -- unless someone
breaks the law to help them get "some comfort" before they die.
   Clinton administration spokesmen fret that legalizing marijuana for
medical use will only encourage young people to think drugs are not
dangerous.  Yet, insisting that a popular drug like marijuana is more
dangerous than it really is only encourages kids to think other truly
dangerous drugs like heroin, cocaine or LSD are not as dangerous as
grown-ups say they are.
   Where is President Clinton?  Here's a group of patients who do not need
him to feel their pain.  They just need him to help relieve it.
CLARENCE PAGE writes for The Chicago Tribune.
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