CONGRESS FAILS TO PROTECT MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS

On July 23, the U.S. House of Representatives had a chance to protect from
arrest patients who have a medical need to use marijuana. Tragically, the
House failed to do so.

Fortunately, more than half of Colorado's House delegation voted to protect
these vulnerable citizens. Only Reps. Scott McInnis (R-Grand Junction),
Marilyn Musgrave (R-Loveland), and Joel Hefley (R-Colorado Springs) failed
to do so.

An amendment proposed by Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Dana Rohrabacher
(R-CA) would have prevented the U.S. Justice Department and its Drug
Enforcement Administration from interfering with state medical marijuana
laws by raiding and arresting patients and caregivers. This moderate
proposal would not have forced any state to allow medical marijuana if it
doesn't want to. It would simply have required the DEA to respect the
wishes of those states that have chosen to protect seriously ill patients
from arrest.

As a result of the House action, patients battling cancer, AIDS, multiple
sclerosis, and other terrible illnesses, who find that marijuana relieves
their pain and nausea, will still face being rousted out of bed, arrested,
handcuffed, booked, and thrown in jail.

This isn't just a possibility. It is precisely what happened to Suzanne
Pfeil last September.

Pfeil, partially paralyzed from post-polio syndrome, was asleep in bed when
DEA agents raided the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa
Cruz, California, of which she is a member. Agents stormed into Pfeil's
room, pointed automatic rifles at her head, and demanded that she get out
of bed. When she pointed to her leg braces and said, "I can't," they
handcuffed her and ransacked the premises.

Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican, summed up the amendment in an
eloquent, emotional speech on the House Floor. "It is immoral for us to put
people in jail for trying to alleviate suffering," he said. "It is a
travesty for the federal government to send police into my state to arrest
people and put them in cages for doing something that the people of my
state have voted to make a legal practice."

But that is precisely what the federal government has been doing -- and
will continue to do, with the explicit permission of Congress. It is doing
so despite the fact that back in 1997, the prestigious "New England Journal
of Medicine" called the federal ban on medical marijuana "misguided, heavy-
handed and inhumane." The federal government continues its war on patients
despite pleas from the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American
Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, and literally
hundreds of other medical, nursing, and public health organizations.

But there are reasons for hope. The battle to end this war on the sick is
gaining momentum, fueled by anger and disgust over the DEA's raids on patients.

The last (and only other) time that medical marijuana was addressed on the
House floor, in 1998, a symbolic resolution condemning state medical
marijuana laws passed by 311 to 94. This time, 152 House members voted to
take concrete action to protect medical marijuana patients. More than two-
thirds of House Democrats stood up for patients, as did 15 Republicans who
bravely defied their party's closed-minded leadership.

Reps. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) and Bob Beauprez (R-Wheatridge) were
among those courageous Republicans. In time, they will find themselves on
the right side of history.

The tide has turned. The federal government's pointless, misguided war on
patients will end. The only questions left are how soon it will happen --
and how many people battling terrible illnesses will suffer in the meantime.