BLOWING SMOKE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Until now, I have admired Al Gore's candor on the marijuana question.

After all, he is the first presidential candidate to admit not only that he
smoked marijuana but also that he inhaled it.

His boss, President Clinton, confessed during his 1992 campaign to smoking
the wicked weed in his youth, but insisted that he "didn't inhale." That's
like saying you subscribe to Playboy for the articles. Maybe he enjoyed
that distinctive marijuana smell, which is sort of like burning socks.

On the Republican side, Texas Governor George W. Bush simply has avoided
talking about anything naughty he might have done in the first three
decades or so of his life. That is his right. Besides, no one can accuse
you of lying if you don't say anything at all.

No, it is not the candidates' private lives from decades past, but their
public positions at present that should concern us now.

With that, I find it informative to see how the first two baby boomers from
major parties to face each other in a presidential election dance around
the issue of medicinal marijuana.

It is informative because medicinal marijuana is what many Washington
politicians call a "third rail" issue -- touch it and you die!

Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney have tried to avoid saying much on
the issue, except that they "support states' rights" but also will
"vigorously enforce" federal laws. That's a prudent, pragmatic position in
the midst of a stormy and divisive political issue. That's also called
having it both ways.

Gore, too, tries to have it both ways, although at different times. When he
was asked by a young MTV audience member last week whether he supported the
legalization of marijuana for medicinal use, the vice president responded
that he did not. Current research, he said, does not show marijuana to be
any more effective at relieving the pain and misery of cancer patients and
others than less controversial methods.

I wondered what research he had been reading. A 1999 Institute of Medicine
report commissioned by the Clinton-Gore administration, for example, found
marijuana to be effective enough to be recommended for short-term use of up
to six months by some seriously ill patients. More than six months posed
health risks, not because of the active ingredients, known as cannabinoids,
but because of the respiratory damage smoking anything can cause.

Gore's response sounded all the more amazing when compared to his position
during the primaries. When he was running against Bill Bradley and
appealing to Democrats, he sounded a lot more open to the idea of letting
doctors prescribe marijuana.

In a televised forum in Derry, N.H., last December. Gore poignantly
recalled how his late sister's doctor prescribed marijuana for her before
she died of cancer in 1984. She refused to take it, he said, but, "If it
had worked for her, then I think she should have had the ability to get her
pain relieved that way."

Right on. And he was not alone. So far, Alaska, Washington state, Oregon,
Arizona, Nevada, Maine and the District of Columbia have passed voter
initiatives to allow patients in need to have the choice that was offered
to Al Gore's sister.

But the Clinton administration stands fast in its anti-marijuana position.
And, presto! By May, the White House position became Al Gore's position,
too. Answering a student in Cudahy, Calif., on May 11, Gore said he sees
"no reliable evidence" that medical marijuana is an effective pain reliever.

Yes, it is interesting to see how quickly reliability can fade in the midst
of an election campaign -- right along with candor.

Or maybe there's some truth, after all, to the rumors about early marijuana
use causing late-life memory loss.